Ice Cube has been trying to keep fans up to date on the progress of the last Friday movie. Christened Last Friday, the film is supposed to be a culmination of three decades worth of storytelling and comedy by Ice Cube and his cast, many of which have gone on to become some of the biggest actors in the game.
Unfortunately, several have also passed away as they waited for Warner Bros to give them the greenlight, something that has yet to happen. Ice Cube’s latest interview gives fans their newest updates on it all. Ice Cube has been vocal about wanting to conclude Friday with a film titled Last Friday. Unfortunately, he and Warner Bros have not seen eye to eye on the final script. While many wish he would simply go elsewhere to make the film, Cube explains that while the concept is his intellectual property, Warner Bros owns the film.
“When you do a movie, you have to get it distributed. If you want your movie to be taken as high-level entertainment, there is only a few houses and studios that can deliver that.” He ended up going with New Line for this, after initially wanting to fund the movie himself but deciding against it. New Line is owned by WB. Sometimes, when you do one movie with a company, they have the right to release the sequels, which is the clause we’re caught in. They have the right to release the sequels.
The way they stalemate is to do a few, then stop.” Ice Cube says they won’t give him the movie rights back to make a Last Friday due to the success of Ride Along and Straight Outta Compton. Despite wanting to do those films with New Line and Warner Bros, the companies did not believe in them. As a result, Ice Cube took them to Universal and made $150 million on Ride Along and $250 million for Straight Outta Compton. He said the studios were “embarrassed” after that.
Ice Cube then addressed a lot of the Friday cast that have passed away since the last installment. This includes Tiny Lester, AJ Johnson, and John Witherspoon. Cube blames Warner Bros for dragging their feet and now making it impossible for those actors to appear in the Last Friday. He confirmed that scripts were completed while those people were still alive. Fans have been hoping that a final installment will at least bring back Chris Tucker’s character Smokey, but they will have to wait to see what Warner Bros decides.
WB has recently done some significant shake-ups and canceled some massive film projects, so it could be possible that Last Friday is going to get buried even further on the priority list. Not only did they recently fire Superman actor Henry Cavill, but they also canceled massive projects like Westworld and several other big superhero films. Years of bad film choices are pushing the studio in a new direction that could further hurt Last Friday.
Here’s hoping someone in the new regime decides to do the right thing and release the film rights back to Ice Cube.
