Ice Cube’s “Friday” and its purported plans for a reboot had social media in a frenzy once again this week after the rapper seemingly fell for false claims that a “prequel” was in the works starring fellow West Coast emcee Vince Staples and online influencer and comedian Druski.
The Monday, March 21 Twitter post that triggered the online ruckus was shared by an online user named @OhThatMarco, who claimed: “A ‘Friday’ prequel is in the works for HBO max. Comedian Druski and rapper Vince Staples are attached the lead roles.”
In another post, the person even went as far as to allege that Cube’s son “O’Shea Jackson Jr. the writer of the script, says the Movie will go into production sometime this summer.”
The post garnered 19,000 likes and several thousand retweets, which ultimately caught the eye of the “It Was a Good Day” emcee a few hours later, who quoted the post, writing, “this is blasphemy.” However, it wasn’t long before the post’s creator retweeted one of their older tweets, saying, “Twitter is all about lying, joking, and spreading misinformation,” proving the post was just an online user looking to stir the online pot.
Still, social media users didn’t appear to be fooled by the internet troll, including one user “Is it called Thursday?”
Another person wrote, “Friday prequel??? N-gga do you mean Thursday???”
“Another fake casting everybody finna believe lmao,” commented a third person.
Cube’s “Friday” premiered in 1995 and starred a slew of Black talent, including the rapper himself and veteran comedian Chris Tucker, who portrayed one of the film’s most memorable characters, Smokey. The movie also starred the late John Witherspoon as Pops, Tiny Lister as Deebo, and several other colorful characters.
Cube created two sequels, “Next Friday” in 2000 and “Friday After Next” two years later. However, fans have waited nearly two decades to no avail for the fourth installment, tentatively titled “Last Friday.”
Last July 2021, The Wall Street Journal released a report featuring excerpts from letters shared between Cube’s legal team and Warner Bros. that shed more light on why fans have yet to receive another movie. The documents revealed “disagreements over creative direction, accusations that neither side is engaging in a sincere manner and finger-pointing over who is causing the delays.”
During Witherspoon’s funeral in November 2019, Cube apologized for not making the film before the veteran actor’s passing, stating, “It’s not my fault. Some dumbass people in Hollywood at New Line Cinema.” He added, “If you wanna … you can email Toby Emmerich and Richard Brener if you feel like I feel. Yeah, you punks had two scripts, and you didn’t wanna do them.”
