A fourth installment in the Friday franchise is finally in the works at Warner Bros.
Ice Cube announced the news in a recent interview on Flavor Flav's Sirius XM show, Flavor of the Week.
"We finally got some traction with Warner Brothers,” Cube explained. "They have new leadership. My man Mike DeLuca, who used to be at New Line [Cinema] when I first started, when I first did the first Friday and Players Club and All About the Benjamins. Mike DeLuca was there, so now he’s running Warner Brothers."
He added, "Mike DeLuca was there right so now he's running Warner Brothers and and him and my man Michael Gruber was like, 'Yo, what the fuck is going on with Friday? Man, let's get this shit back online."
Ice Cube reiterated his past frustration with Warner Bros., saying the studio "took so long" to get back on track. He said that while the company was "dicking around, not doing the movie," they were "losing people," citing Friday actors John Witherspoon, Tiny "Zeus" Lister Jr., and Anthony Johnson, all of whom passed away within the last five years.
"I was a little hot ’cause they had took so long," he said. "Because John Witherspoon passed away, Tiny passed away, A.J. Johnson passed away. Man, we keep losing people. And y’all keep dicking around not doing the movie the way it need to be done."
Cube concluded, "They want to do it. But the key is it gotta be done," he said. "So, they finally came to their senses."
The news arrives more than a year after Cube called out Warner Bros. for holding up a fourth Friday film during a 2023 conversation with TMZ.
“Warner Bros. is weird right now,” Cube shared. “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.”
Last January, Cube also spoke with TMZ in a conversation in which he was asked to shed light on the situation concerning Warner Bros.’ control over the rights for Friday. When asked if the new Friday film is a “lost cause,” Ice Cube responded, “No, never,” he said, before calling on Warner Bros. to “do the right thing.”
The first Friday film hit theaters in 1995, with Cube, Chris Tucker, Nia Long, Bernie Mac, Lister Jr., Witherspoon, Regina King, Faizon Love, and Anna Maria Horsford. Two sequels followed: 2000's Next Friday and 2002's Friday After Next.
