The original Friday was a hit comedy that solidified Ice Cube as a force in Hollywood and introduced the world to Chris Tucker, who only recently revealed why he did not return for the sequels. Its success spawned a pair of sequels but while most modern franchises would be at an endpoint with a trilogy, Ice Cube has wanted to make a fourth entry in the series. In order to make that film he’s hoping to gain control of the franchise, but there are some issues. Unsurprisingly, those issues come down to studio problems and money.
In an appearance on the Hotboxin’ Podcast with Mike Tyson, Ice Cube discussed the current state of the Friday franchise. The last film in the series was released in 2005 and Cube has been trying to make a fourth film, expected to be called Last Friday since that time. Unfortunately the franchise has been stagnant. Cube explains that what he would like is for Warner Bros. to just let him control the franchise, but that doesn’t seem likely, at least at the moment, because WB is “weird right now.” Ice Cube says…
I don’t know. Warner Brothers 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 to be close to a time when we can 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.
It’s difficult to argue that Warner Bros. is “weird right now. Following the merger with Discovery plenty has changed at the studio. We’ve seen movies like Batgirl, that were nearly completed cancelled. A lot of changes are happening at the streaming service and the movie studio. If it’s difficult to get a meeting to talk about a potential Friday sequel, that’s not necessarily a shock.
Theoretically, that could be all the more reason to just let Ice Cube do his thing with Friday. Perhaps he could do something with it, which is, in theory better than doing nothing. WB might even be willing to just sell Ice Cube the rights to the series, but he says he’s not interested in that. He already sees Friday as his, so he doesn’t believe he should pay for it now. He continues,
I ain’t putting shit up for it. Fuck no. They need to give it to me, and they goin’ 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.
It’s been 20 years since the last Friday, but with the number of legacy sequels that we’ve seen that have brought new life to franchises decades later, the time that’s passed certainly doesn’t mean there is zero chance of a fourth Friday film. It’s not sounding like something that is likely to happen right now, but things could change at any point.
