Don Cheadle Reveals Details of His Scrapped Fresh Prince Spinoff
Don Cheadle not only almost starred in a Fresh Prince spinoff, but he also created the theme song.
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air starred Will Smith and ran for six seasons from 1990 to 1996. Recently, the series got the reboot treatment with Bel-Air on Peacock, but that wasn't the first time another Fresh Prince series was given a shot. The fifth episode of the original show's first season, "Home Sweet Homeboy," featured Don Cheadle as an old friend of Will's named Ice Tray who visits from Philadelphia. Turns out, the network wanted to create a spin-off for Cheadle's character called In the House, and they even shot a pilot, but it wasn't picked up. Recently, the Marvel star did an interview with Vanity Fair and reflected on his brief time playing Ice Tray. The actor revealed he originally wanted to be a musician and even wrote the theme song for the scrapped series.
"At that point I was doing a lot in studios. Again, I never completely dropped the idea of music," Cheadle shared. "It was always in the sidecar. I wanted to take a crack at the theme song. They're like, 'Go ahead.' So I set off and my producing friend Kenny Finch wrote the theme song. I don't know that ultimately we would've used it, but I'm singing and you hear it." He added, "I think you can actually find it online."
"They wanted to, by the middle of our shooting, because it's shot in front of a live studio audience, so you come to table read Monday, Tuesday rehearse, Wednesday rehearse, Thursday do it in front of a life audience," Cheadle recalled when speaking to Uproxx in 2019. "So by that Thursday, the producers said, 'We actually want to do a spin-off around your character.' We shot a whole pilot. Didn't get picked up."
Don Cheadle in Secret Invasion:
Don Cheadle has been a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since he first played James Rhodes in Iron Man 2 in 2010. It was revealed in the newest Marvel series, Secret Invasion, that Rhodey was a Skrull and that the real Rhodey has been in a form of hibernation since his near-death experience in 2016's Captain America: Civil War. While fans have mixed feelings about this choice, Cheadle was dropping hints last year.
Last September, at Disney's D23 Expo, Cheadle spoke with ComicBook.com's Brandon Davis about his starring turn in the upcoming Armor Wars movie. When asked about where Rhodey finds himself in Armor Wars, Cheadle heavily hinted at the twist from Secret Invasion.
"At a very different place, and in a way that is something I can't really talk about," Cheadle said of his Marvel character. "But it is going to be very surprising to a lot of people."
Currently, there isn't a release date for Armor Wars, and very little is known about the film outside of Cheadle's involvement. It was originally planned as a Disney+ series, but Marvel announced at D23 last year that it would be a feature film instead.
