Mike Epps says Ice Cube has plans to take the ‘Friday’ franchise around the country.
via People:
While on a new episode of PEOPLE in 10 talking about his HGTV series Buying Back the Block with his wife Kyra, Epps, 53, says he spoke with Ice Cube, 54, about a plan to recreate the beloved comedy franchise as a stage play to tour around the country.
“The last person I texted was Ice Cube. He wants to do the movie Friday; he wants to go out on tour, like as a play,” Epps says, when asked about the last famous person he texted.
Though Epps wasn’t in the 1995 original Friday, he joined for the second and third installments, Next Friday (2000) and Friday After Next (2002).
“He’s trying to get Chris Tucker to do church stuff in it, and Katt Williams,” Epps says of Cube’s plans to bring the Friday series to a new medium. “[It’s] a little crazy, but if we can find these two dudes and get them in it, it’ll be really good.”
Ice Cube co-wrote and starred in the Friday films. The original Fridayfollowed Cube’s character Craig Jones and Tucker, 52, as Smokey, two friends who smoke marijuana on a Friday from a local dealer (Faizon Love) that Smokey was supposed to sell. The dealer threatens to kill Craig and Smokey if they don’t pay him back for what they used by the end of the night.
Tucker declined to star in the sequels over what Ice Cube described as “religious reasons” in a 2021 post on X, formerly known as Twitter. Instead, the sequel introduces Epps as Craig’s cousin Daymond, aka “Day Day,” and sees Craig move in with his cousin and uncle after they win money through the lottery.
Williams, 52, appeared in Friday After Next, which follows Craig and Daymond on another adventure on Christmas Eve. The Friday sequels made for some of Epps’s first major roles in Hollywood after he made his debut in 1997’s Strays.
“I’ll never forget it, I was on Good Morning America, and my mom religiously watched Good Morning America with a cup of coffee for years,” Epps recalls of doing press for Next Friday. “When my mom saw me on Good Morning America I knew I’d officially made it in showbiz.”
Last year, Ice Cube said during an appearance on Mike Tyson‘s Hotboxin’ with Mike Tyson podcast that he has written two screenplays for a fourth Friday film. However, he said Warner Bros. Pictures, which owns the rights to the series, has made it difficult for him to advance a new entry into production.
“They just kept giving you note after note after note, never giving you the green light,” he said at the time.
A ‘Friday’ stage play isn’t the worst idea we’ve heard.
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