With a solid opening weekend and a no. 1 spot on US/Canada box office charts for Are We There Yet?, it looks like Ice Cube is going to make it in the family movie arena after all. I guess he’s becoming one of those celebrities, like Queen Latifah, who demonstrate how one can build a career on hip hop while gradually leaving it behind. No doubt a country blues album is next! And, in a blow to rapper/actor haters everywhere, Samuel L. Jackson’s Coach Carter leaned back to no. 2 after only one week on top.
With positive reviews rolling in, including accounts by reviewers that accept Ice Cube in a child-friendly role while disliking the movie, this first weekend’s box office is only the beginning as all those snowed-in folks hit the theaters. Comments have centered on Ice Cube’s warmth in Are We There Yet? and, unlike typically punny headlines, some of these writers aren’t trying to be witty:
Boxoffice Magazine – “His warm presence“.
NY Times – “warmhearted family man“.
Reuters – “heated up the weekend box office“.
Boston Herald – “Ice melting“.
Ice Cube credits his ability to make a $50 million film to the success of Barbershop. But he feels that his ability to make a good family movie is due to his own experiences as a family man:
“I have four kids (ranging in age from 4 to 18), so I have seen every family movie made. I know the good ones like ‘Home Alone’ and ‘Finding Nemo,’ and I know the ones you let your kids watch while you sleep in the theater.”
This depth of experience, an example of “keeping it real” in family movies, required a brutally honest appraisal of his competition, as Cube puts it:
“I don’t want to dis anybody, but I slept through ‘Lemony Snicket’.”
Although reading such Ice Cube quotes is amusing, he took this project very seriously and intended to make a good family movie that wasn’t sappy, yet still built a positive message about families. Whether or not it’s actually a good movie, and I’ll probably never know, it looks like Ice Cube has succeeded in his new endeavor.
More commentary from Ice Cube and director Brian Levant.
