Ice Cube – Why turned down $12m for role in Friday sequel

Ice Cube has explained why Chris Tucker turned down $12 million for a role in the Friday sequel.

Ice Cube and Chris starred together in the 1995 hit comedy movie, but Chris decided not to reprise his role as Smokey in the next two sequels – 2000′s Next Friday and 2002′s Friday After Next.

He 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,”

Ice Cube – who served as a producer on the Friday movies – stated this while responding to a fan on Twitter, who said he heard Chris “quit over money” reasons.

Chris, had in an interview with All Urban Central last month, reflected on his decision to not return for the Friday sequels.

“Back then, I gotta tell you, one of the reasons why I didn’t do the second one was because of the weed,” Chris explained. “Because I said, man, that movie became a phenomenon. I don’t want everybody smoking weed — and I never really told people this because I kind of forgot about it, but it was one of the reasons why I didn’t do it. Because I said, ‘I don’t wanna represent everybody smoking weed.’”

Chris added, “And that’s one of the reasons why I said ‘nah.’ I didn’t wanna keep doing that character. It probably was good for me because it kept me moving to the next phase and next movies.”