Friday After Next is a holiday classic. The third film in Ice Cube's beloved franchise finds characters Craig and Day-Day (Chris Tucker did not return for the second or third installments) employed as shopping center cops after their home gets robbed by a perp in a Santa costume. The fake Kris Kringle lifts their presents and rent money.
Cube, not known for the most jolly of settings, says he wanted Christmas to be the backdrop for the film so audiences could get a visual of what Christmas on the West Coast looked like.
"I wanted to do a California Christmas movie," Cube told MACRO's newsletter, UpRising. "No one would ever do a Christmas like us. I've seen Christmas [on the West Coast] my whole life. And so I set out to blend the two from not just being a Friday movie but wrapped up in a holiday so I can really show how we celebrate Christmas on the West Coast where there’s no snow on the ground. It's Christmas lights on palm trees and s**t like that. I just wanted to cinematically show how we do Christmas on the West Coast."
Cube, who names Home Alone and Trading Places among his G.O.A.T. Christmas films, says that the holiday that corporate and Catholics built isn't one of his favorites so he found joy and laughter in some of the over-the-top acts of Friday After Next.
"I'm not a big fan of Christmas, to be honest," said the west coast rapper. "So beating Santa Claus’ ass with a Christmas tree is funny to me. That’s just the hood version of some of the Christmases we've had to go through or experience or heard about. Everybody heard about all the presents being gone and stolen from somebody. You just know some kids are going to be crying. People are going to be yelling, talking shit, mad at the community for breaking in their house. So I wanted to go on that."
Katt Williams' role in the film is top-tier. Once Williams showed that he had a handle on the words on the page, Cube allowed him to ad-lib as only Williams can. He says Katt's genius was evident.
UpRising: Katt Williams appears in the next MACRO film, One of Them Days. Director Lawrence Lamont recently spoke with UpRising about his gift of improvisation. Did you realize Katt Williams was such a special talent when you filmed Friday After Next?
Ice Cube: Yeah, I mean just seeing him in his costume and wardrobe, you just started laughing, hearing that voice. Some people got a voice where they can almost say anything and make you laugh. It's the sound of their voice. Chris Tucker is another guy who can do it with the voice. Even John Witherspoon. So when you got people like that, you could tell very quick that whatever we give them is going to snap and pop. It's going to have that energy that you want in a movie.
What we did was have him run the script as-is and then we say, okay, once you comfortable with it as-is, how would you do this scene? Go for it. We ready for [your character to say] anything. And in those readings, sometimes you get the jewels, you get the ad-lib parts that are not scripted but works perfectly with the scripted lines. The more you do that, the more jewels you get for the editor. It's really the editor who has to balance what's in the script and where the ad-libs can enhance the script.
Cube spends ample time talking about his new album Man Down, its masculinity theme and explained why the unity on the west coast supersedes other coasts.