No offense intended to the rapper-turned-actor, but the person who convinced Ice Cube that he had the chops to become a viable action star needs a talking to. He’s good at what he does – which is largely deadpan comedy with a furrowed brow – but xXx: State of the Union highlighted in no uncertain terms that leading blockbuster movies was not in his wheelhouse.
Vin Diesel headlined the opening chapter and steered it towards major box office success, but with a marketable property on its hands and no A-lister to take center stage after he opted not to return as Xander Cage, it was decided that the director of one of the worst installments in the history of the James Bond franchise should be handed $113 million and Ice Cube to craft the follow-up.
In the end, State of the Union flopped so hard that it made its way into the history books as one of the biggest money-losing misfires ever made, with a paltry box office haul of just over $71 million leaving it perilously close to $100 million in the red, all while a 17 percent Rotten Tomatoes score rubbed further salt into an already-gaping wound.
It speaks volumes that Cube’s involvement was limited to a one-scene cameo when Diesel was eventually convinced to come back into the fold a decade later for Return of Xander Cage, but being a critical and commercial catastrophe has done nothing to dissuade Netflix subscribers from checking out xXx 2, with FlixPatrol outing it as one of the most-watched titles on Netflix this week.