Dave Franco Cast As Vanilla Ice In Upcoming Biopic About The Musician, ‘To The Extreme’

Dave Franco has opened up about his upcoming role as Vanilla Ice in the future biopic about the musician called To The Extreme.

Franco said he envisions the project will be like 2017’s The Disaster Artist. “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,” Franco told Insider.

The actor also mentioned that he’s had numerous phone calls with Vanilla Ice, born Robert Van Winkle, to prepare for his upcoming role. 

“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. 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,” Franco said.

To the Extreme was written by Chris Goodwin and Phillip Van and was titled after Vanilla Ice’s 1990 album. The movie landed on 2018’s The Black List, which is a list of un-produced screenplays voted as favorites amongst film executives and the Hollywood crowd.

At the time, the logline for the movie read, “From a high school dropout selling used cars in Dallas to having the first hip hop single to top the Billboard charts with Ice Ice Baby, a young Vanilla Ice struggles with stardom, extortion attempts, and selling out as he makes music history.”

While the project was published in Production Weekly in 2019, Franco said in his interview that there is currently no start date for the movie because of ongoing COVID-19 concerns.