Just waking up in the morning, Ice Cube has got to thank God. He doesn’t know, but today seems kind of odd: No barking from the dog, no smog, Mama cooked a breakfast with no hog, and Ice Cube’s production company Cube Vision entered into a strategic partnership with Hong Kong media investment company AID Partners to expand its development slate. As Variety reports, Cube got a call from Kelvin Wu, an investor he wants to dig out of somewhere in the area of eight figures, and they hooked it up for later so that Wu’s firm will become a significant shareholder and adviser in the acquiring of scripts and the hiring of creative teams to produce them independently. Cube would then be able to shop his own fully developed projects, giving him total creative autonomy.
If he hits the switch, for instance, he can make the ass drop.
Get Cube on that metaphorical court and he’s trouble: Last year, he fucked around and got a triple-double with Straight Outta Compton, a critical and commercial success that added to a lineage of Cube Vision hits that includes Friday, Are We There Yet?, Barbershop, and Ride Along (not to mention their respective sequels). Creatively, Cube has long been freaking brothers every way like M.J., and this new partnership will give him the backing of a major benefactor, one who’s also steeped in movie companies like Legendary Pictures and Golden Harvest, as well as a significant toehold in Asia’s rapidly expanding movie marketplace. In short, it’s a deal that stands to make Ice Cube into a global media mogul.
With the seven, seven-eleven, seven-eleven, seven—even Back Door Little Joe.
Cube tells Variety that he’s particularly excited by those prospects of new business opportunities in Asia, adding that he and Cube Vision’s CEO Jeff Kwatinetz welcome a new partner who “appreciates how the right funding and creative autonomy will empower us to build a platform to grow together.” He even saw the lights of the Goodyear Blimp, and it read:
The Cube Vision investment is an ideal platform for AID Partners to realize our belief and strategy in building a better lifestyle by bridging media and entertainment in different global territories. Ice Cube is an extraordinary multi-hyphenate talent who also happens to have an eye for identifying commercially viable and culturally expansive source material. Coupled with Jeff’s strong business and creative acumen, the two are primed to take Cube Vision to the next level and we look forward to this long term, lucrative partnership.
That sounds like an okay day. Pretty okay.