New Line, Ice thaw for 'Benjamins'
Video director Bray to helm pic
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Project is based on a script by Ronald Lang, with production to begin shortly. Video director Kevin Bray will helm the film.
New Line beat out MGM, Paramount, Universal and Warner Bros. for the project. Ice Cube has been a profit center for New Line, but had walked away from a first-look deal. His scripting debut, "Friday," cost $4 million and grossed $28 million; follow-up comedy "Player's Club" cost $6 million and grossed $24 million. The sequel "Next Friday" cost about $11 million and grossed $57 million to establish itself as the most profitable pic on New Line's much-scrutinized 2000 schedule.
But Ice Cube became frustrated with the company's unwillingness to step up the budgets on his pics or offer him other projects. That led him to terminate the deal with the studio, putting on hold his plans to script and topline a third installment of the "Friday" franchise, and placing "All About the Benjamins" up for grabs when Ice Cube committed to it (Daily Variety, Jan. 15).
Emmerich and New Line topper Michael Lynne moved decisively to keep Ice Cube in the fold, partly because of his profitable past but also because the films he makes fit squarely in to Emmerich's modestly budgeted niche-pic strategy.
In "All About the Benjamins," Ice Cube will play a bounty hunter who chases a bail jumper (Ice Cube 's "Next Friday" co-star Mike Epps) but reluctantly teams up with his quarry when they unwittingly fall into the middle of a diamond heist. Pic is produced by Ice Cube and Ice Cube Vision's Matt Alvarez, with scripter Lang and Lamont Cain exec producing. Ice Cube will next be seen in the John Carpenter-directed Screen Gems actioner "Ghosts of Mars."
Backend payday
While specific terms of the deal were not available, Ice Cube won't be paid much upfront; the allure of the deal is that he becomes a substantial profit partner if the film makes it into the black. Arrangement puts him at risk if "Benjamins" exceeds its $14 million target budget, but puts him in line for a serious payday if the film does what his past efforts have.
Deal also puts the next "Friday" pic back on track. Ice Cube plans to write it, produce and star in it for New Line next year.
Ice Cube's deal may rep the first move of several by New Line to cement ties with De Luca-tied talent. "Boogie Nights" director Paul Thomas Anderson is being courted to direct the screen version of the Dave Eggers book "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," which the studio bought for $2 million. And Adam Sandler has two projects New Line is sharing with other studios, including a comedy Anderson is shooting with Sandler and Emily Watson.
