When a movie surprises the industry by tracking well, then exceeding box-office expectations, it’s hardly surprising to hear sequel talk the Monday following opening. However, Straight Outta Compton -- the N.W.A. biopic that just opened to roughly $60M at the box office – doesn’t lend itself easily to a second chapter. Or does it?
One of the mild criticisms aimed at Straight Outta Compton by critics was that they felt it tried to attack too much material during its already substantial 150-minute runtime. As it turns out, though, the young cast who played the founding N.W.A. members already have ideas of where they’d love to see a second movie go. O’Shea Jackson Jr., who plays the younger version of his father Ice Cube, told Yahoo Movies:
I would definitely like to get that Friday in there. [Or] the ‘Up in Smoke’ tour! The ‘Up in Smoke’ tour would have been hard to have in there, you know? That would incorporate both of them, with [Eminem] and Snoop. So definitely up to the ‘Up in Smoke’ tour. That’d be a way to reunite Dre and Cube."
He’s referencing the 2000 hip-hop tour that was originally labeled the "Boyz in tha Hood" tour, formed in support of Dr. Dre’s "The Chronic 2000" album but changed once Ice Cube agreed to appear on stage. Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg headlined the tour, with Cube, Eminem, Proof, Nate Dogg, Kurupt, D12, MC Ren, Westside Connection, Mel-Man, Tha Eastsidaz, Doggy's Angels, Devin The Dude, Warren G, TQ, Truth Hurts, Xzibit and The D.O.C., Hittman and Six-Two appearing on the musical roster (according to Wiki).
The other reference is to Ice Cube’s breakout comedy Friday, the creation of which is referenced in Straight Outta Compton, likely because both movies were directed by F. Gary Gray.
Corey Hawkins, who plays Dre in the new movie, expanded the answer to say that he’d like to follow his character all the way through the later developments in his professional career, getting all the way through Dre’s collaborations with Apple on the extremely popular Beats By Dre headphones. If you want to listen to their complete answer, it’s below:
These events, individually, might not necessarily feel like they are enough to warrant a second Compton movie. But there’s no question that audiences who flocked to the theaters to see Compton this weekend wanted to spend more time the members of N.W.A., and now it’s up to Universal to figure out how to make that happen.
