Friday and 22 Jump Street actor (and former rap star) Ice Cube will reportedly star in Humbug, an upcoming film that retells Charles Dickens’ classic holiday tale A Christmas Carol with a modern spin. The project is expected to reunite him with filmmaker Tim Story, who directed Ice Cube in 2002’s Barbershop and most recently in last year’s Ride Along with Kevin Hart.
According to Deadline, the project is expected to cast Ice Cube as a stingy real-estate mogul who’s shown the error of his ways after being visited by three ghosts from his past, present, and future.
The script for Humbug was recently the subject of a bidding war between four studios: Universal Pictures, MGM, New Line, and Disney. Universal prevailed in the battle, and is now reportedly looking to push the project penned by Rio and In Living Color writers Todd R. Jones and Earl Richey Jones into production for a potential 2017 release in theaters.
Collaborations between Story and Ice Cube have historically done well in theaters, with both Barbershop and Ride Along earning a tidy profit. Both films have sequels hitting theaters in 2016, with Ride Along 2 bringing back Story as a director along with stars Ice Cube and Kevin Hart. Barbershop 3 will have Ice Cube reprise his role from the original film, with The Best Man filmmaker Malcolm D. Lee attached to direct.
The former N.W.A. rapper is having an interesting year so far, as the biopic of the famous gangsta rap group that he produced, Straight Outta Compton, has been a huge success for Universal. Ice Cube’s son O’Shea Jackson, Jr. has earned considerable praise for his portrayal of his real-life father in the film.
Humbug has no official release date at this point.
