The $20 million club might soon welcome another member. Daily Variety says today that funnyman Martin Lawrence, whose last laugh fest was the summer hit “Big Momma’s House,” is in talks to star in two pictures. If signed, the comedian will make an upward of $20 million for each project.
The hike will put Lawrence in the same salary ranking as Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler, Eddie Murphy and Chris Tucker. Lawrence previously got $16.5 million for starring in the Fox film “The Black Knight.”
The two films — “National Security” and “Blue Streak 2,” a sequel to the 1999 hit — are both action comedies being developed at Columbia Pictures. “National Security” is about a white cop wrongly accused of beating a black man (Lawrence). And in “Blue Streak 2,” the actor would reprise his role as a thief turned cop when the Luke Wilson character enlists him once again to solve a crime.
No word on which of the two projects will go into production first. But shootings for the two films will be back to back, with the first one starting in spring and the second in July if the Hollywood actors and writers strike doesn’t occur.
