Ice Cube went from hardcore gangsta rapper to significantly less serious work (ARE WE THERE YET?, etc.), but now it sounds like he’s coming back to put that scowl to good use.
Cube will reunite with his THREE KINGS director David O. Russell for what is being described as a potential franchise, playing a plainclothes detective in “an R-rated raw drama that’s thematically a throwback to those 70s revenge films like the Harry Callahan movies.”
It should be interesting to see how/if Cube can erase the unintentional hilarity of recent tough-guy attempts (TORQUE, XXX: STATE OF THE UNION), or if the project actually comes together with the capricious director. Russell seems to hover more than land lately — after his NAILED collapsed, he exited the adaptation of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES for his Vince Vaughn dramedy OLD ST. LOUIS, only to jump on the videogame movie UNCHARTED, which he had already left once before.
Russell’s boxing drama THE FIGHTER, with another THREE KINGS collaborator who isn’t George Clooney, opens in December.