The live-action Scooby-Doo movies have become cult hits over the years, following their theatrical success with die hard love from fans who grew up watching them. Written by James Gunn and directed by Raja Gosnell, the Scooby-Doo movies made more than $450 million globally after hitting theaters in 2002 and 2004. Unfortunately, the films were sometimes frustrating to those working on them, including star Freddie Prinze Jr., who was asked to take a pay cut ahead of Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed.
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During a recent interview with Esquire, Prinze Jr. revealed that there was some behind-the-scenes issues leading into the 2004 Scooby sequel. He was asked to take a pay cut in order to give his fellow stars the same salary that he was getting. While Prinze Jr. was obviously all for his costars getting paid, it didn’t make sense why their raises were coming out of his paycheck and not the studio’s budget, especially after the first movie made so much money.
“I remember thinking, ‘Hold up, who’s giving them the raise? Me or y’all,’” Prinze Jr. recalled. “Like we made you guys three-quarters of a billion dollars, you can’t afford to pay them what I’m making on this? Screw that.”
The issue with the studio ultimately led to Prinze Jr. wanting to quit the Scooby-Doo franchise instead of make the second movie. That, combined with the changes made to Gunn’s original scripts, kept the actor from wanting to reprise the role of Fred. Over the years, however, his feelings about Scooby-Doo have changed. The studio came with its own set of issues but Prinze Jr. has been able to see what Scooby-Doo and those characters have meant to fans around the world.
“All these people that had grown up loving those [Scooby-Doo] movies started reaching out… and then I got what I felt was a more accurate perspective on what that movie meant to people because I was no longer viewing it through the lenses of the studio,” he said.
Both Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed are currently streaming on Netflix.
