Last Friday, the fourth installment of the Friday franchise has been in development for almost a decade.
There are no signs it's getting any closer to a movie theater near you.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Ice Cube is locked in an intense fight with Warner Bros. about the future of the franchise.
The battle started when Cube submitted the first draft of Last Friday to the studio, who rejected it because Cube set it in prison -- which Warner Bros. deemed "not funny."
It has escalated so much that Cube wants a divorce.
“Ice Cube wants Warner Bros., owned by AT&T Inc., to surrender its rights to the ‘Friday’ property and to two other movies he made there — All About the Benjamins and The Players Club. Warner Bros. replied, calling the demand ‘extortionate’ and saying it won’t release rights to the valuable franchise or any other Ice Cube movies.”
The WSJ reports that Cube has brought race into the squabble.
“The possibility of discrimination has also emerged as a flashpoint in the conversations. In one letter, Ice Cube’s representative wrote that movies he has done for the studio ‘are habitually underfunded in comparison with projects featuring white casts and creative teams.’ The correspondence points to other Ice Cube films he says weren’t well supported.”
Warner Bros. denies race was a factor and says such allegations are “grounded in a libelous set of knowing falsehoods,”