- Chris Rock, Lethal Weapon 4, 1998. One sequel is enough! Roger Ebert’s Chicago Tribune review made #1 a hit way beyond Warner’s meagre expectations He felt #4 was mere out-takes… All the usual black suspects – Combs (aka Puff Daddy in those day), Eddie Murphy, Will Smith, Chris Tucker, Larenz Tate- rejected the gay cop, Lee Butters. Rock rolled, but as, suddenly, the father of Danny Glover’s grandchild! As usual, Glover said: “I’m too old for this shit!”. This time he meant it, as he and Mel Gibson finally reached the ages of Murtaugh and Riggs as scripted back in 1986.
- Jamie Foxx, Any Given Sunday, 1999. The difference between the two being that Foxx was actually a football quarterback.in high school.
- Martin Lawrence, Black Knight, 2001. With this salary approaching the $20m mark, Lawrence happily agreed to be transported to medieval times. Tucker was just very wary. “When you’re young and you’re black, you do a bad movie and you’re through.”
- Mike Epps, Friday After Next, 2001. Tucker passed on an invite to continue his 1994 participation from the first Friday,. So his Smokey helped restructure Day-Day – allowing Epps to reprise his 1999 participation from the second of the Ice Cube trilogy: Next Friday.
- Steve Martin, The Pink Panther, 2004. Steve Martin, The Pink Panther, 2005. Kevn Kline, Mike Myers and Kevin Spacey were also among producer-director Ivan Reitman’s crazy ideas in making a (re)hash out of the genius of Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards. Reitman then passed and the resultant mess was not released until 2006 because, as Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert put it: “It’s like the high school production of something you saw at Steppenwolf.”
- Tom Cruise, Knight and Day, 2009. Tucker and Eva Mendez in Wichita became a reunion of the Vanilla Sky team once Cruise expressed an interest in being The Man of Mystery – and called up Diaz. And still flopped. Final title was, literally, senseless.
- Casey Affleck, Tower Heist, 2010. Eddie Murphy’s plan was an African-American Ocean’s Eleven – with Martin Lawrence, Dave Chappelle, Mike Epps, Katt Williams and… Chris x 2: Rock and Tucker. All that changed when Ben Stiller took the lead for $15m… double Murphy’s pay-cheque (for Rock’s old role). Times had changed.
- Richard Ayoade, The Watch, 2011. Chris was seen about Jamarcus in the neighborhood watch comedy – until it passed to the Cambridge Footlights find from The Mighty Boosh. (Pity it was in a Ben Stiller farce).
- Jamie Foxx, Django Unchained, 2011.
- Kevin Hart, The Upside, 2017. Idris Elba, Jamie Foxx and the two Chrises Rock and Tucker were all in the frame for quadriplegic Bryan Cranston’s helper In a typically hollow-wood re-hash of a gigantic French hit, Untouchables, 2011. The abundantly charismatic Paris star, Omar Sy, won several Hollywood films as a result of his Cesar-winning performance. Coming nowhere close, Hart simply lacked heart.
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 11