4. Vanilla Ice Was Almost A Movie Star?
If you grew up in the 90s, you remember Ninja Rap. Back in 1991, Vanilla Ice's record company was making deals with Universal Pictures and New Line Cinema and were positive that his good looks alone would help transfer him into the world of movies. The thing is, if they played their cards right - that could have been the case. In 1991, Vanilla Ice worked on two movies. But originally, more movie roles were in the works - and bigger roles too! Ice's time in Hollywood started with up and coming studio New Line Cinema that literally wanted to put him in every movie they were making that particular year. The first production was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II - The Secret of the Oooze where Vanilla Ice signed on to play the character Jack, a club performer who was originally suppose to not only save the Turtles... but destroy the Shredder! Just in case you haven't seen TMNT II, here is the gist of Vanilla Ice's role. The Turtles are fighting monsters, they break into a nightclub that startles the patrons, Vanilla Ice and his crew start freestyling about the current events that make everyone think that it's part of the show. But the original idea was for the character Jack (that would eventually just become Vanilla Ice as himself in the movie) to have met the Turtles at some moment prior to the exciting finale of the movie - which would make sense on why he would help the Turtles draw attention away from the monsters and keep the party going. And when the Shredder shows up, it was suppose to be Michelangelo and Ice helping each other out by putting the speakers on the maximum volume to throw the Shredder out of the room - saving everyone in the club. So what happened? Touring happened. At this period, Vanilla Ice was part of the biggest tour in the world. A joint venture with MC Hammer! Meaning that he only had eight days to write the song (Ice said in an interview that he wrote the song in 30 minutes) choreograph the entire scene and then film it. It's amazing that they got anything done at all. The end result is the lack of that Jack character that the Turtles would reenact with. Making it more of a musical cameo than a movie role, as both the producers and record executives had hoped. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAhS2FdzG0U Ninja Turtles 2 wasn't the only movie the MC Hammer tour helped destroy. But prior to engagements with the tour, Vanilla Ice was also in talks with New Line Cinema to have a major role in Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare! What was said to be the final installment in the Nightmare on Elm Street saga featured Breckin Meyer, Johnny Depp, Tom Arnold, Alice Cooper and ALMOST Vanilla Ice as a young runaway that loves hip hop and gets killed by Freddy Krueger. It would have been Ice's first R Rated role and really could have helped disenfranchise him from the teenybopper image that the record executives had tried to create for him. I honestly believe that both the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and Vanilla Ice would have received an extra boost in popularity if this deal could have been finalized. More people (the younger Vanilla Ice crowd) would have gone seen the movie and Vanilla Ice could be shown in a light that the record executives tried to keep hidden - his more mature and adult side. His feature length film finally became a reality in Cool As Ice with Universal Pictures and his record company. The movie was a vehicle for Ice and featured too many layers. A story written by David Kellog about a witness protection program that goes awry, the concern to add both a love interest and a kid to grab Ice's two biggest demographics and to make a lighthearted movie that still had some edge to it (but not TOO much). Vanilla Ice's only concern for the film was that he could ride a motorcycle, that he could rap his original songs in the movie (almost turning it into a hip hop musical) and that he was getting paid (a cool million). The film was a flop because it lacked a lot of substance and it ultimately killed Vanilla Ice's acting career. The idea of a white rapper turning into an actor became a myth until Marky Mark perfected the art a couple of years later. Ice would do some appearances in movies here and there and would more often turn down the roles than agree to them. He did have a hilarious cameo in the 2002 film, The New Guy and 10 years later would appear as an exaggerated version of himself in Adam Sandler's That's My Boy, which was unfortunately about as popular as Cool As Ice in the theaters. There are still rumors floating around that Cool As Ice 2 remains in development and that Ice might reappear in the Ninja Turtle franchise (as producer Michael Bay got his first start in directing Vanilla Ice music videos!)