Mike Fleming

New Line Cinema is in talks with Ice Cube to write, produce and star in another installment of the Friday series. Cube could be in line to direct it as well, but all that is being worked out. A TMZ report says that Chris Tucker as being in serious talks to reprise his role in the film. They have had discussions and Cube wants him, I’m told, but it’s unclear whether that part is a reality. For one thing, when I interviewed Tucker several years ago for Playboy, he told me that because of his religion, he was reticent to be depicted in the pot smoking mode as his character Smokey was in the original film. He went as far as to say that he probably now wouldn’t have taken that memorable stint in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, because of the verbal explosion of profanity and liberal use of the “N” word. Stay tuned.