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LAWRENCE TO JOIN $20 MILLION CLUB
Martin Lawrence, last seen in theatres with summer smash
Big Momma’s House, is in early talks to become
the newest member of the $20 million-per-film club.
In fact, he’s in talks for two pictures at Columbia,
each of which would pay him north of $20 million. The
two films are action comedy National Security and Blue
Streak 2, a sequel to the hit 1999 comedy.
The closure of either deal will put Lawrence in the
rarefied territory reached by comic actors Jim Carrey,
Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy and Chris Tucker. (Mike Myers
pacted for that amount before dropping out of Dieter,
but will hit the mark on his next picture).
It’s a significant bump up for Lawrence, who’s
getting $16.5 million to next star in the Fox time travel
comedy The Black Knight. The early planning is for Lawrence
to film either National Security or Blue Streak 2 —
depending on which crystallises first — in the
spring. He’d follow with the second film in July
— if there are no strikes by Hollywood’s writers
and actos. Lawrence most recently wrapped the MGM comedy
What’s the Worst That Could Happen? with Danny
DeVito.
National Security has been a hot project since it was
scripted two years ago by Spin City writer-producers
Jay Scherick and David Ronn. It concerns a white cop
wrongly accused of pulling a Rodney King on an African-American
(Lawrence). Circumstance leads them to team up to hunt
men who want to kill them.
Blue Streak 2 would put Lawrence back in the criminal-cop
buddy dynamic of the original. Here, his character gets
drafted by the cop (to be played once again by Luke
Wilson) to help solve a crime. Original Streak screen-writer
Steve Carpenter and director Les Mayfield are also negotiating
for encores.
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