Marlon Wayans said he should have sued Harvey Weinstein for stealing his family’s film ideas, namely the Scary Movie franchise, but that the infamous producer’s eventual downfall felt like “god’s revenge.”
Scary Movie began as a 2000 comedy-horror film written by Wayans and his brother, Shawn, directed by his brother, Keenan, and produced by Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax. The movie went on to spawn four more films
During an appearance on Club Shay Shay Wednesday, Wayans said that Miramax gave his family a “crappy” deal for the first installment, which ultimately led to the downfall of their relationship as the sequels progressed; by the time of Scary Movie 3, Miramax hired the Zucker brothers to direct the film based on ideas from the Wayans brothers. On Wednesday, Wayans said the company did this without their knowledge.
“We [went] on, made our money. White Chicks made another classic. Little Man made another classic. We do our thing,” Wayans said, but noted he should have sued Weinstein and his company for stealing their ideas.
Scary Movie 4 and Scary Movie 5, made without the Wayans’ involvement, performed the worst of the franchise. “You can’t do Wayans shit without the Wayans,” he said. “You can try, but eventually you’re gonna lose a lot of money because what we do is special. We have 200 years of comedy between me, Shawn, Keenan, Damon, Kim. We have a lot of years of excellence of what we do. You can’t just put anybody on them.”
Wayans also said the eventual demise of Harvey Weinstein following his 2020 conviction on numerous charges of rape and sexual assault — which in part spawned the #MeToo movement — felt like “God’s revenge.”
“Sometimes you ain’t gotta do nothing because God’s gonna do it all — God’s revenge,” Wayans said. “When God come for you, you gotta trust God. You don’t retaliate, vengeance is mine. They took Miramax, his company… Then they had the Weinstein Co. and then all this stuff started going down with the rape allegations and they took that company too.”
He added, “I always say, they didn’t just rape and molest women, they raped [n-words] too. Molested us in them deals. They were terrible people.”