Ice Cube struggles over ownership rights to the Friday franchise with Warner Bros.

Ice Cube Friday

Ice Cube is responsible for one of the most popular comedies of the 90s with Friday, which skyrocketed Chris Tucker into superstardom. Cube would return with two more sequels, but when asked about a planned final installment, titled Last Friday, as it turns out, it gets complicated with the ownership of the rights, which belong to the studio.

ComicBook reports that the rapper-turned-actor recently made an appearance on the Mike Tyson podcast Hotboxin’ where he was inquired about the status of the last film in the series. Cube makes it explicitly clear that he has a problem with the studio Warner Bros.

I don’t know. Warner Bros. is weird right now. I don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know what they’re doing. We’d love to have it back. I think it’s going 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.

Warner Bros. gave him the option of purchasing the rights so he can have full creative control. Cube was quick to remark, “I ain’t putting shit up for it. Fuck no. They need to give it to me, and they’re going to 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.”

Straight Outta Compton depicted a notorious incident when Ice Cube destroyed an office at Priority Records over money disputes. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that, but Cube is seemingly business-minded when he puts in his work on a project he’s passionate about. Which is also exemplified by his departure from the group, NWA, when he was not getting his fair share.

Source: ComicBook

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E.J. is a News Editor at JoBlo, as well as a Video Editor, Writer, and Narrator for some of the movie retrospectives on our JoBlo Originals YouTube channel, including Reel Action, Revisited and some of the Top 10 lists. He is a graduate of the film program at Missouri Western State University with concentrations in performance, writing, editing and directing.