Blink and you missed it; Ice Cube and Mike Epps starred in a film called Janky Promoters back in 2009. The synopsis is quite simple: two promoters succeed in booking Young Jeezy (played by himself) on the same date, resulting in a bidding war for the ages. Regrettably, the film never received the treatment Ice Cube feels it deserved.
After a bunch of delays in the production-run a bunch of times, studio head Harvey Weinstein decided to publish the film "straight to DVD" without Ice Cube's consent. The former-NWA rapper spoke quite candidly on the matter in a Twitter rant administered several days ago.
"This movie is bitter-sweet for me. We never had a chance to finish or promote Janky Promoters. Harvey Weinstein and his brother put this movie out on DVD behind our backs before we could finish the film," posted Ice Cube, in the aforementioned Tweet. "They actually had editors finish the movie in secret."
Ice Cube's comments weren't exactly born out of thin air. A Twitter fan brought the situation to light, in an unassumingly positive remark about the film - a series of gleaming Tweets followed as a consequence, again conjuring a response from Cube, who asked that fans diligently for the far superior "director's cut" of the film.
"The Weinsteins f–ked me. [Laughs.] Yeah, basically, they f–ked me. They was runnin’ through financial problems, so they couldn’t put the movie out on wide release. And they told us we could sell the movie to another company, give them their money back—I had money tied in that movie—and then release it wide,” Cube explained in a prolonged manner. "While we were making the deal over here, they put it out on DVD over there. And I found out because somebody told me, 'I just got the DVD for 'Janky Promoters.'”
For Ice Cube to say The Weinsteins did him the dirtiest, speaks volumes to their scumduggery, given the malaise imparted on him by the one Jerry Heller in the days middle management. Cube did, however, state that Janky Promoter's leaking to the public, was the "shadiest s–t that ever happened to me" specific to the film industry, notwithstanding his run-ins with Heller and his go-between Eric Wright.