Ice Cube and Mike Epps have announced that the next film in the Friday franchise, Last Friday, is officially in development.
Cube, who created and starred in Friday, Next Friday, and Friday After Next, and Epps, who starred in the latter two films, shared the news on Entertainment Tonight in a segment giving fans a few details about what to expect.
When asked about the film by the host, Epps confirmed that it was "going down." After an inquiry from the host about whether Chris Tucker would be reprising his role as Smokey in the upcoming movie, Epps said: "We’re talking to him and he wants to come back."
"He’s one of the best," added Cube. "I think he’s going to do it."
As for what the film will be about, details are scarce — but the segment revealed that it'll deal with the gentrification of a neighborhood and will begin filming later this year.
Rumors about Last Friday have been swirling for years as details about the film remained light. Back in 2024, Cube revealed the outline of a script for a fourth Friday movie that had been rejected by New Line Cinema.
While speaking with Cam Newton on the Funky Friday podcast, Cube expressed that he didn’t want the studio to decide the direction that the next film would go.
"I know these characters, know this culture and everything," he said. "I know what it need to be. And they don't. So they had a guy in there named Toby Emmerich and he wouldn't make the movie, we was trying to get it made."
Cube then revealed what he wanted to happen. "I wrote a script where Craig and Day, they had a dispensary and they had a flash mob in there and they caught one of the kids and beat his little ass and they end up going to jail," he said. "So they in jail ducking Deebo, they in jail ducking Damon, they in jail ducking the Joker brothers."
Cube explained that the film would have eventually had Craig and Day go to rehab, where they’d run into Chris Tucker’s Smokey.
"It was a bullshit rehab where [Smokey] was taking everybody's weed and smoking it in the little basement and shit," Cube explained. "And so, they was like, 'Jail is not funny, it's too much time in jail. How can you make jail funny?' And I'm like, 'Man, y'all don't know what the fuck y'all talking about. Then they come out with Orange is the New Black, Let's Go to Prison... All these movies about that, and I'm like, 'See.' More Hollywood execs don't know what the fuck they talking about."
Earlier this year, Epps claimed that the film was getting made during a Breakfast Club appearance.
"[Cube] called me the other day. We just finished the deal," Epps said. "That’s another brother that’s put so many brothers on, man. Man, this dude put so many... and don’t really get the props for it. Put me, Chris Tucker, Bernie Mac, I mean name 'em."
Get your hands on the soundtrack to the first Friday movie on red orange haze vinyl over on the Complex Shop.
