The news that the star of Are We There Yet? and Are We Done Yet? is on the verge of signing on for a comic book adaptation may not fill your lives with joy. You may still be traumatised by a chance glimpse of one of those terrible two films as you flicked channels on TV or passed the open door of a multiplex.
But let's give Ice Cube a break - he was still the best thing in both films (note: not saying much) and he made us laugh so much in xXx2: State of the Union that we're willing to give him another chance (whadya mean, that wasn't meant to be a comedy?). So the news that he's all set to make 10, based on the graphic novel by Shannon Eric Denton and Keith Giffen, doesn't fill us with dread.
The premise is a killer. Ice Cube's hero gets a piece of junk mail one day, informing him that he's in a competition. Nine others are in there with him - and whoever gets out alive, wins. Naturally, he files this under "unlikely / Nigerian spam" in the big round filing cabinet and goes about his business - until an axe-wielding stranger turns up and does his level best to liquidate, or possibly liquidise, him.
Cube's company is negotiating to produce with an eye to him taking a starring role. Charlie Bartlett's screenwriter Gustin Nash (seriously? That's a name? Er, OK. Good luck to you, Gustin) is adapting the script, with Jesse Cale.
In the meantime, Cube's working on First Sunday (not to be confused with Next Friday) wherein he plays a crook trying to rip off a church, and The Extractors, as one of an elite team who break people out of prison. Let's just hope they're better than his last three films - we can't afford another round of therapy.