Ice Cube Will Play Scrooge in New ‘A Christmas Carol’ Remake

Ice Cube was casted as Scrooge in a upcoming new A Christmas Carol remake. Deadline reports that Cube will earn eight figures for playing the lead in Humbug. Cube’s character will be “a wealthy real estate mogul shown a path to redemption by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future.” The West Coast legend will also produce the latest reboot the Charles Dickens classic. Tim Story will be the director. Story directed Barbershop and Ride Along, both are films Ice Cube starred in. Universal Pictures won the rights to Humbug over MGM, New Line and Disney in a bidding war. The movie is set to release sometime in 2017 but the date is not confirmed yet. Story and Cube are currently working together for Ride Along 2, which comes out in January on Martin Luther King weekend.

Cube is having a fantastic last couple of months. The N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton, which he and Dr. Dre are the executive producer for, was number one for three straight weeks in the box office, for a three-week total of $134.1 million, according to New York Times. FX Networks have secured the rights to premiere the film on cable television. The hip-hop film will air on FX’s group of channels — FX, FXX, FXM and VOD platform FXNow.