Michael Blackson is coming to Ice Cube’s defense after he was accused of shortchanging actors in his Friday film.
On Wednesday (Dec. 29), the comedian took to social media to share his thoughts after Faizon Love revealed that he was only paid $2,500 for his role as Big Worm. “@icecube is not to blame for us getting paid so little,” he tweeted. “It’s the film industry’s pay scale. I got paid $800 a day when I did Next Friday plus overtime. I made $1200 for my one day’s work of ‘I can’t get giggy with this shit.’ Thanks to Next Friday I became the biggest African comic.”
Blackson also said that once actors make a name for themselves, they can demand any amount of money to appear in a film and get it.
As REVOLT previously reported, Love told the Atlanta Black Star that he turned down a cameo in Next Friday due to what little he was paid in the original film. However, the “It Was A Good Day” rapper refuted those claims and took to Twitter to share details about the movie’s budget.
“I didn’t rob no fuckin body,” Cube wrote. “The 1995 Friday movie cost $2.3m to make. Shot it in 20 days. Faizon worked 1 day, maybe 2. All the actors got paid scale to do the movie. They could’ve simply said ‘No,’ but they didn’t. So, miss me with that shit.”
Cube also addressed why Chris Tucker didn’t appear in the Friday sequel, after he previously revealed that he only made $10,000 to play Smokey. “We were ready to pay Chris Tucker $10-12m to do Next Friday, but he turned us down for religious reasons,” tweeted the former N.W.A. emcee. “He didn’t want to cuss or smoke weed on camera anymore.”
Check out Blackson’s post below.