Stop, collaborate and listen to this Hollywood news. 30 years after “Ice Ice Baby,” Vanilla Ice is still in the news and now, his story is headed to the big screen. Dave Franco will be starring as Rob Van Winkle, the Texas breakdancer who would go on to achieve a rare sort of notoriety as Vanilla Ice, the man behind “Ice Ice Baby” which was, believe it or not, the first hip hop single to top the Billboard charts and the subject of countless parodies, roller rink playlists, karaoke evenings and at least one very memorable interview moment.
None of that screams “biopic material” but Franco has some experience in mining interesting material out of b-list celebrities, fresh off his work on 2017’s The Disaster Artist, which found real pathos in the story of Tommy Wiseau. In an interview, Franco compared this new role to The Disaster Artist, saying “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.”
And it sounds like Van Winkle’s along for the ride. “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,” Franco 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.”
And you know, now that you mention it, Franco does look a little like Vanilla Ice so, all told, there might be an interesting movie here.
