Craig and Day-Day finally have a director. New Line Cinema has hired Lawrence Lamont, the Detroit filmmaker who made the Keke Palmer and SZA comedy One of Them Days, to direct Last Friday, Ice Cube’s long-promised fourth chapter of the Friday series. The hire was made public on Tuesday, October 27.
Cube wrote the screenplay and returns as star and producer, alongside Bob Teitel and Michael Gruber of his CubeVision company. No Friday film has reached theaters since Friday After Next on November 22, 2002, so by the time cameras roll the gap will be pushing a quarter of a century.
Why Lamont makes sense for Cube
Look at the résumé and the fit is obvious. Before features, Lamont came up through rap videos, working closely with Big Sean and also with J. Cole and Nas. His video for “Light” won him an MTV Video Music Award.
His first feature then played like a cousin of Cube’s 1995 original. One of Them Days follows two roommates in the Baldwin Village area of Los Angeles racing to replace $1,500 in rent money by 6 p.m., which is close kin to Craig and Smokey scrambling to pay Big Worm by 10 that night. Lamont shot it in roughly 22 days in July 2024, and it opened on January 17, 2025.
The numbers are the real pitch. That movie cost $14 million and took in $51.8 million worldwide, about 3.7 times its budget ($51.8 million divided by $14 million). It earned Lamont a directing nomination at the NAACP Image Awards, a Spirit Award nomination for best first feature, and a breakthrough director prize from the African American Film Critics Association. A sequel with Palmer and SZA has been in early development since June 2025.
The long road to Last Friday
Cube has been pushing this movie for most of a decade, and the delays became part of the lore.
- April 2017: the late John Witherspoon, who played Craig’s father, says a fourth film has been greenlit.
- April 2019: Cube says the script is done and hopes for a 2020 release on the original’s 25th anniversary.
- October 2022: Cube says Warner Bros. turned down his scripts over creative differences.
- April 2025: he lands a deal with New Line and Warner Bros. to write and star in a new installment.
- May 2026: Cube and Mike Epps announce the film is officially in development, with production set to start late this year.
- October 7, 2026: California awards the project state film tax credits.
- October 27, 2026: Lamont is named director.
That tax credit is what turned talk into a shooting plan. The state’s announcement opened with a nod to the franchise’s most quoted line, saying California “isn’t ready to say “Bye, Felicia”” to Friday. The credit is reported at about $11.4 million against a 40-day shoot in Southern California, which works out to roughly $285,000 of state support per filming day ($11.4 million divided by 40).
Cube framed it as a homecoming. “This story has been part of the fabric of South Los Angeles since our first film 31 years ago,” he said in the state’s announcement, adding that the production will employ more than 180 local cast and crew.
Who is back, and who is not confirmed
Epps, who joined the series as Day-Day in Next Friday in 2000, has talked about returning. The big question remains Chris Tucker. When Cube and Epps made the May announcement, Tucker was described as in talks to play Smokey again, but no deal has been announced and the full cast has not been revealed.
The story itself has been pitched in broad strokes. In a June interview, Cube and Epps said the plot would center on gentrification and keeping the community together in South Central, a fitting update for a series that has always been about one block and the people on it.
What comes next is casting, then cameras. With New Line’s director in place and 40 Southern California shooting days already budgeted, the next official step is a cast list, and the first question fans will check is whether Smokey’s name is on it.
Further reading
- Wikipedia: Friday (franchise)
- Wikipedia: One of Them Days
- Governor of California: 35 new films coming to California, including Last Friday
Image: Chad Davis from Minneapolis, United States, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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