Ice Cube's 'All About The Benjamins' Character Originally Written For A White Guy

03/14/2002 4:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Brett Anderson

(3/14/02, 4 p.m. ET) -- It's hard to imagine a middle-aged Caucasian man portraying Ice Cube's character in the film All About The Benjamins, but that's exactly what the original script called for, according to the hip-hop movie star.

Ice Cube stars in the film--which debuted at Number Three last weekend, grossing more than $10 million--and he recently discussed making character changes to the script. "You know, Bucum was a 50-year-old white cop when I first got the script, so a lot of things changed. I mean, Reggie was a little different. (He) wasn't quite what Mike Epps brought to it, so, you know, we just wanted to tailor-make it. We took it from what it was, and tailor-made it to what we are. I think we did a pretty good job."

In All About The Benjamins, Cube portrays a bounty hunter Epps's character hires to help find his stolen wallet, which contains a winning lottery ticket worth $60 million.

In real life, Cube is on the search for a new record-label home. His Greatest Hits album, issued in December, is his last release for Priority Records. "It's like I've out (grown) them on the movie side," Ice Cube says of his former deal with Priority. "They aren't helping me grow any on the music side. I think the relationship has run its course, and I'm glad to try something new--to do something new with some new labels out there that's bigger, better, stronger, and more in the game."

Cube will release another album after he completes his next film projects. He has several movies in the works, including Barbershop, Friday After Next (a new Friday sequel), Big Ticket, Stray Dawgz, and Pimp.

-- Billy Johnson Jr. and Sofia Fernandez, Los Angeles

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