23 Jul – Rumours of Dave Franco starring as Vanilla Ice in a biopic started circulating early last year, finally the actor confirmed that he will in fact be portraying the "Ice Ice Baby" rapper. The 35-year-old spoke about it for the first time in an interview with Insider, saying that the rapper is a "sweet" guy. "Rob is such a sweet and intelligent guy and he's been super helpful in the process of getting all the details correct and making us privy to information the public doesn't know," he said. "Just talking to him I can't help but think about the rabbit holes I'm going to go down to get ready for the role." The younger Franco also compared the upcoming biopic to older brother James' "The Disaster Artist", a 2017 comedic biopic of Tommy Wiseau that both Franco brothers starred in. "With that movie, people expected us to make a broad comedy where we make fun of Tommy Wiseau, but the more real we played it, the funnier and heartfelt it was - that's the tone we want for this one as well," he said.
The biopic about the 1990s rapper, real name Robert Matthew Van Winkle, will be called "To the Extreme". The title is taken from his hit debut studio album of the same name, which contains his hit single "Ice Ice Baby". News of Franco's role in the biopic first surfaced in January 2019 after trade publication Production Weekly published the casting notice. The biopic has yet to go into production and Franco revealed there is no start date for now, owing to the pandemic that has stunted film productions in Hollywood and elsewhere. Franco might not be seen as Vanilla Ice on the big screen soon but his feature directorial effort, "The Rental", will be releasing this 24 July in North America via On Demand and selected drive-in theatres. The horror movie, also penned and produced by Franco himself, will open in cinemas in other territories on various dates, including today in Singapore and next Thursday in Malaysia.