Dave Franco will play rapper Vanilla Ice in an upcoming biopic titled To the Extreme. Rumors about the project surfaced last year, but Franco has now officially confirmed the news, noting that he has been talking to the rapper quite a bit on the phone. Vanilla Ice, whose real name is Rob Van Winkle, shot to mainstream success with his 1990 debut album To the Extreme, fueled by the massively popular hit single "Ice Ice Baby."

In a new interview, Dave Franco revealed that To the Extreme is happening. "We have been in development for a while but we are inching closer and closer to preproduction," the actor said. The movie will tell Vanilla Ice's story from a high school dropout selling cars in Dallas to having the first hip-hop single to top the Billboard charts with "Ice Ice Baby." Young Vanilla Ice struggles with stardom, extortion attempts, and selling out as he makes music history along the way. To the Extreme is written by screenwriters Chris Goodwin and Phillip Van.

When asked about the tone of To the Extreme, Dave Franco brought up The Disaster Artist, which his brother, James Franco, directed. "With that movie, people expected us to make a broad comedy where we make fun of Tommy Wiseau," says Franco. He adds, "but the more real we played it, the funnier and heartfelt it was - that's the tone we want for this one as well." Vanilla Ice has been through quite a bit in his career, including starring in his own movie, Cool as Ice, which is often considered to be one of the worst movies ever made.

In order to prepare for To the Extreme, Dave Franco has been speaking with Rob Van Winkle on the phone to get the inside scoop. "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," Franco said. "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." It will be interesting to see which aspects of Van Winkle's very public career end up in the movie, while learning something new about the one-hit wonder.

Vanilla Ice recently canceled a performance in Austin, Texas due to low ticket sales and case surges in all of Texas. When asked about the reason for pulling out, Ice claimed he didn't know the case numbers were that bad. Whatever the case may be, he's more than likely pretty happy about To the Extreme and being able to offer up his input into the development of the movie. As for when the project will go into production, that is unclear due to the world's current state of affairs, but it sounds like Dave Franco and Rob Van Winkle are ready to go. The interview with Franco was originally conducted by Insider.