Ice Cube is clearing the air when it comes to rumors regarding “Friday” actors reprising their roles on the movie franchise.
Over the past two months, both Chris Tucker, who played Ice Cube’s co-star and Faizon Love have come forward explaining why they decided to not participate in the sequel “Next Friday.”
Tucker said last month he did not want to play a character that was a weed smoker, but Love said last week it had to do with how little he felt he was getting paid for his character Big Worm Now fans are coming to the defense of the actors, urging Cube to do a better job at paying his actors.
One person reposted a story from Atlanta Black Star’s coverage of Love’s statements and wrote, “Yo it’s wild how @icecube act like he for the people and whole time been robbing his own people…..Pay them people @FAIZONLOVE @christuckerreal #RipAjjohnson.”
But Cube — who wrote the screenplay and shopped it to New Line, which paid production costs — hit back, denying claims that he paid anyone less than what they deserved. “I didn’t rob no f–kin body. The 1995 Friday movie cost $2.3m to make. Shot it in 20 days. Fazion worked 1 day, maybe 2. All the actors got paid scale to do the movie. They could’ve simple said ‘No’ but they didn’t. So miss me with that sh-t…”
He also addressed Tucker not participating in the future “Friday” films.
“We were ready to pay Chris Tucker $10-12m to do Next Friday but he turned us down for religious reasons. He didn’t want to cuss or smoke weed on camera anymore.”
In an interview with Comedy Hype, Love explained that he had only gotten paid $2,500 for his role. To reprise his role in “Next Friday” he said he was offered. $5,000 but that was not enough for him. However, Love reveals if they do a final movie for “Friday” he wouldn’t turn it down this go around.
“Now if I do it again, they talking about the last Friday then, oh yeah, I’m with it. You got a last check?” said Love. “If Cube said, ‘Faizon, there’s no money. I need you to do this.’ I would have to do it on GP because it was that character that brought me into the game heavy.”
In January, Tucker spoke with Shannon Sharpe on his “Shay Shay” series and said he was paid about $10,000 but explained that they were on a tight budget. He also said the money wasn’t the most important thing on his mind anyway. He explained, “I didn’t care. I wanted the opportunity.”
So when another fan responded to Cube’s tweet saying, “I thought i heard chris tucker quit over money,” he decided to clarify that as well. The 52-year-old said, “We were ready to pay Chris Tucker $10-12m to do Next Friday but he turned us down for religious reasons. He didn’t want to cuss or smoke weed on camera anymore.”
Do you think they should do a final “Friday” movie?
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