Ice Cube Joins Disney's Modern Day 'Oliver Twist' Movie as Actor, Writer and Producer

Hamilton director Thomas Kail is updating Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist for a new, hip-hop–infused Disney musical. Iconic rapper/actor Ice Cube will play Fagin, the predatory adult who turns kids into pickpockets in London. Cube is also co-producing and co-writing the script treatment with Jeff Kwatinetz, whose production credits include Black Knight and this year's Barbershop: The Next Cut.

Interestingly enough, it was announced a year ago that Ice Cube will play Ebenezer Scrooge, the antihero of yet another Dickens work, in a new A Christmas Carol movie called Humbug.