When one thinks of movie franchises, they likely think of superhero flicks or the best horror movies. But there are plenty of long-running comedy franchises out there, including Ice Cube's Friday movies. And the actor/recording artist/producer recently explained why he thinks audiences connected to the Friday movies so much.
The original Friday came out in 1995, and is considered one of the best '90s comedies. This grew into a full-blown franchise, with the series of titles streaming for those with Max subscription. While we wait for the long-awaited Last Friday to come to fruition, Ice Cube spoke to THR about the success and staying power of those films. In his words:
It felt like we was doing something that Hollywood kind of counted out in a way. There was a movie called CB4. It looked closely at the rap industry and hardcore rap. We had had movies like Boyz n the Hood and Menace II Society. We had these hardcore movies about our neighborhood, but we never had a movie where we kind of laughed at the situations instead of cry.
I never thought of it this way, but this makes sense. Long before conversations about on screen representation, Friday was bringing stories centered around Black characters in South Central that were about comedy. This stood in stark juxtaposition to other projects at the time, which Ice seems to think was a big reason for the franchise's success.
Friday was a game changer, which is likely why fans continue to call for Last Friday to be completed. In the same interview, Ice Cube further mused on the similarities and differences the 1996 movie had to drama films at the same time. In his words:
It was like, 'Yo, let’s have fun with it. Let’s turn everything on his ear and laugh at this stuff.' Because if we made Friday as a drama, it would be pretty heavy. But it being a comedy, it was important to show that our life wasn’t a nightmare like they showed in some of these movies. We wanted to show that we were actually having fun a little bit with some of this crazy stuff.
On paper, Friday's story and plot points do sound like they could be describing a drama film. After all, much of it revolves around Craig and Smokey trying to survive after being under the thumb of a neighborhood drug dealer. But the high stakes situations were approached with comedy, which started a wildly successful series of movies.
As previously mentioned, the property might end up getting one more movie with Last Friday. That movie has been in development hell for years, but that hasn't stopped fans from calling for it. Unfortunately, we shouldn't expect it as part of the 2025 movie release list.
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