Ice Cube Reveals Why Chris Tucker Didn't Appear In Next Friday
Ice Cube confirms the official reason that Chris Tucker refused to reprise the role of Smokey in Next Friday despite a $10-$12 million offer.
Ice Cube has officially confirmed the reason that Chris Tucker didn't return for the comedy sequel Next Friday. The original Friday, which came out on April 26, 1995, followed Craig Jones (Ice Cube), a man who gets fired and decides to smoke pot with his friend Smokey (Chris Tucker), inadvertently getting on the bad side of a notorious drug dealer in the process. Friday was such a commercial and critical success that it spawned its own franchise, with sequel films Next Friday and Friday After Next coming in 2000 and 2002 followed by an 8-episode Friday animated series on MTV in 2007.
Chris Tucker, who had appeared in the meantime in hit films like Rush Hour, Jackie Brown, and The Fifth Element, didn't reprise the role of Smokey in Next Friday or its follow-up. Instead, his shoes were filled by the new character Day Day, played by Mike Epps. At the time, it wasn't officially confirmed why Chris Tucker was absent from the sequels, though after starring in the next two Rush Hour movies he dropped off the map, only appearing in 2 films after 2007. However, if the long-gestating Rush Hour 4 ever comes to fruition, it seems likely that he will be returning to star.
On his Twitter account, Ice Cube responded to a tweet from a fan who accused the producers of Friday of not offering Chris Tucker enough money for the sequel. Ice Cube clarified that Tucker refused the film for religious reasons, citing that "he didn't want to cuss or smoke weed on camera anymore." He stuck to his values to such a degree that he even turned down a potential payday of "$10-12" million. Check out the tweet below:
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 (@icecube) December 29, 2021
Click here to view the original post.
Ice Cube's comment confirms the theory that many have held about why Tucker didn't return to the franchise. The actor became a born-again Christian in 1997, which led him to become much pickier about the projects that he chose. Likewise, starring in the Rush Hour franchise brought him such dividends that he was able to refuse even high-paying roles like Smokey.
Even without Chris Tucker, Next Friday was a sizable success, raking in $60 million on a budget of $11 million. From the looks of things, if Tucker had signed on, that would have increased the budget, eating into a sizeable chunk of the profits. However, a Friday 2 with Chris Tucker may have also been a much bigger hit, so it's impossible to tell what could have been if he hadn't made the decision to opt out.
Next: What Happened To Chris Tucker After The Rush Hour Movies
Source: Ice Cube/Twitter
