Marlon Wayans says he should’ve sued Harvey Weinstein for stealing his family’s film ideas.
The topic came up during Wednesday’s episode of Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast. Wayans, 52, was the episode’s special guest and he discussed the challenges and injustices he and his family faced in Hollywood—particularly with the Scary Movie franchise.
Wayans explained that Miramax, the film’s Weinstein-backed distributor, gave them a “crappy” deal for the first installment of the comedy spoof film. However, the film went on to open with $42 million at the box office, which he claimed was “unheard of” at the time.
While the Wayans Brothers got a better deal for the second installment in 2001, the professional relationship between the creatives and the studio soured for further sequels.
“I always say, they didn't just rape and molest women, they raped n***as too,” Wayans said at the 1:37:44 mark in the video shared above. “Molested us in them deals. They were terrible people.”
Marlon explained that the brothers and Miramax couldn’t reach a deal for Scary Movie 3, so the film company brought on the Zucker Brothers to direct it based on the ideas the Wayans Brothers shared during their pitch, reportedly without their knowledge.
“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.”
Scary Movie 4 went on to gross $178 million worldwide against a $45 million budget, but the fifth film reached a more modest $78 million worldwide with a $20 million budget, per Box Office Mojo.
When Sharpe asked if the family had considered filing a lawsuit at the time, Marlon said, “We should have. We didn't. Go like this, ‘All good.’”
“We [went] on, made our money. White Chicks made another classic. Little Man made another classic. We do our thing,” he added.
However, Wayans believes that justice eventually arrived when Weinstein was hit with numerous rape allegations that eventually led him to a 16-year prison sentence in 2023 amid a 23-year sentence he received in New York where he was convicted of similar sex crimes.
“Sometimes you ain't gotta do nothing because God's gonna do it all—God's revenge. When God come for you, you gotta trust God,” Wayans said. “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 continued, “Now your brother's in jail and you ain't in the business. I didn't have to do nothing. All you had to do is be good businessman. We asked for nothing. We did nothing wrong…But sometimes they get mad that a black man has the nerve to ask for what his money is supposed to be. Don't you tell me what I'm supposed to make. This is what my value is.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Wayans clarified that he had heard things about Weinstein’s behind-the-scenes behavior but did not experience any assault firsthand.
“I hear things. But you know, n***a never asked me for a foot massage,” Wayans explained. “I would have been like, ‘Man, you don't get the fuck out of here.’ But if I had heard, like, if I'd have known somebody, if somebody came to me, I would have pulled up on him. ‘Hey, man, don't do that. I ain't gonna tell you how to do your business but you ain't gonna do that business to my people. Don't do that.’”