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Ice Cube knows his long-time fans are ready for a fresh installment of his beloved Friday films. After doing the most to revive the franchise over the past several years, Cube just wants total control over the brand he built.
On Friday, December 2, Mike Tyson released the latest episode of his Hotboxin' podcast. During their conversation, Tyson's co-host Matt Barnes asked about the status of the film's long-awaited fourth chapter. Cube, who released the first film in 1995, said he wasn't sure if the upcoming installment Last Friday will ever come out since Warner Bros. "doesn't know what they doing."
“I don’t know. Warner Brothers is weird right now,” Cube said. “I don’t know what they doing, they don’t know what they doing. We’d love to have it back. I think it’s gon’ be close to a time when we get it back. So, we’ll either wait for that time, or we’ll keep trying to convince them that they need to let us control the movie. It’s my movie, but they have distribution control.”
Cube created the franchise but the publishing rights to the films have been in Warner Bros.' hands, and they've got the final say when it comes to future films. The rapper-actor said that he's always thinking about Last Friday and shared that he already wrote two screenplays for it in the past. The first one was rejected simply because "the timing wasn't right" and the second didn't go anywhere. Tyson eventually asked if Cube was interested in purchasing the rights from Warner Bros. Let's just say he's not down for that.
“I ain’t putting s**t up for it. F**k no,” Cube replied. “They need to give it to me, and they gon’ make money. I’m not about to pay for my own stuff, that’s stupid … They need to do the right thing, get it to us, let us turn it into more money, and make the fans happy … We can do a lot with it.”
The N.W.A. co-founder also spoke about losing out on roles in Hollywood due to his vaccination stance and his upcoming Mount Westmore album with Snoop Dogg, Too $hort and E-40. Listen to the entire episode above.