Rapper and actor Ice Cube has signed on to portray Ebenezer Scrooge in "Humbug," a modern retelling of the classic Charles Dickens story "A Christmas Carol."

According to Deadline, the rights to the film have been under a four-studio bidding war and has now successfully landed at Universal Pictures, which recently put out his highly successful co-biopic film "Straight Outta Compton."

The film project was being vetted by the likes of MGM, Disney, New Line and Universal before the latter prevailed. Interest for the project comes as Cube's star power is potentially at its greatest following the success of "Compton."

The story will be a reimagining of the Dickens classic with Cube starring in the lead role as a modern day real estate mogul. His character will portray the same characteristics as that of the original Scrooge and the story will unfold much in the same way as the classic book.

Scrooge will still be shown a path to redemption through the ghostly visits of entities from Christmas past, present and future. Of course one can expect for the story to have a redeeming quality for the character as it did in the novel and in many other subsequent films.

This is not the first time that the classic tale has been reimagined by Hollywood. Back in 1988, "SNL" alum and comedian Bill Murray took his swing at the tale in the movie "Scrooged," whose character Frank Cross was the same as that of Scrooge in every way and form. He was the head of a TV network and they were making a TV adaptation of "A Christmas Carol." But when he gets his own visits, he gets that redeeming quality sent through him as well.

"Humbug" will take the same approach and reinvent the story for a modern audience with Cube in the leading role.

There has been no word yet when the film will be released, however it is speculated to be sometime in 2017.