We've gotten used to thinking of Ice Cube as the star of family-friendly, totally harmless movies like Are We There Yet? and even First Sunday, which always struck me as being Tyler Perry lite. But he actually wrote the screenplay for Friday and its sequels, and has a career in movies targeted at grown-ups as well as kids who will laugh at pretty much anything.
It looks like the Cube is back to making movies for adults, at least for now. He'll star in and produce the screenplay he wrote, Janky Promoters, a movie with such a brilliant, self-explanatory title it cannot possibly go wrong. Variety reports that Ice Cube and another actor will play, yes, music promoters who hit the big time when a major hip-hop act plays their small venue. But the two, of course, are totally unprepared, and the whole thing gets out of hand.
Dimension Films, a division of the Weinstein company, will be distributing the film, and company chief Harvey Weinstein may have exaggerated a bit when he praised Cube's power as a brand upon himself. “He's a brand, like Tyler Perry, and that's the direction he's headed in. We're happy to assist him in that because we believe in him." While putting faith in Cube is a very good idea-- the man practically mints money these days-- it's going a bit far to compare him to Perry. Perry is a completely self-controlled industry of his own, writing, directing and starring in nearly everything he does and hewing to a very consistent message. Cube, on the other hand, has branched out into acting in a variety of movies, and has stretched from comedy to drama with good results. He may be insanely successful as a producer, but limiting himself to one “brand” is a considerable waste of his talents.
Janky Promoters, based on title alone, seems destined to appeal to the same urban audience as the Friday movies and, yes, Tyler Perry's movies. But I hope it's not the only direction he's headed in. Remember, the guy was in Three Kings, and Boyz in the Hood long before that-- he's got a lot of balls in the air, and it'd be a shame to see him drop any of them.
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Ice-Cube-Heading-Back-To-R-Ratings-8307.html
