Marlon Wayans: ‘Scary Movie’ return was ‘a mission to honor my dad’

The result: “Scary Movie 6,” which was shot last year in metro Atlanta and is set to come out in theaters June 5. It’s a reunion of Marlon and two of his brothers, Shawn and Keenen Ivory Wayans. (The third through fifth installments of “Scary Movie” were made without the Wayans’ involvement.)

“Scary Movie 6,” he said, was “a mission to honor my dad. He is very religious. He is always talking Scripture. I always believe in my dad.”

The Wayans trio were also able to bring key members of the original film back, most notably Anna Faris and Regina King.

“The new movie feels good. The nostalgia feels good. Having Anna and Regina together in scenes feels good,” he said.

And working with his brothers again felt good as well.

“We got to know each other as men and fully developed artists,” said Wayans, 53. “The paradigm has shifted. It was a beautiful thing.”

Keenan, 67, played the consigliere, he said, while he and Shawn, 55, “were the executors. We’re doctors now, not med students.”

Credit: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

Credit: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP

The ultimate goal of “Scary Movie 6″ is to provide people with laughter and healing while mocking the tropes of the horror genre, he said: “You want people to walk into the theater feeling one way and leaving feeling another. The movie is medicine for some people.”

On Thursday at CinemaCon, a convention for movie theater chains, Wayans offered a fresh trailer revealing jokes making fun of films ranging from “Weapons” to “Sinners” to “Smile.”

While shooting “Scary Movie 6″ out of Tyler Perry Studios last fall, Wayans considered taping his next stand-up special locally at the same time.

“I’m an incredible multi-tasker,” he said. “I would have rocked it. But my director and everyone else, they don’t move at my pace. I had to think about my team. I listened to God. He told me to wait.”

Wayans avoided stand-up for 20 years after Chris Rock heckled him, but came back to it around 2009. He has now released four stand-up specials, each focused on a single theme such as the Will Smith Oscar slap or a rumination on grief.

“It’s a one-man show,” he said. “It’s more than comedy. I like to lay into a theme and tell a story. I’m both a trained actor and seasoned comedian. I’m a writer of several movies. I want to do it all.”

He said creating a special is “like a Rubik’s cube for me. You finish one side and break it down. You create a second side, then a third. If you’re able to get all six sides, you have an interesting piece.”

Wayans declined to say what his latest theme is, but the Helium shows will give viewers a strong sense of what his next TV special will be like. “It’s always taking something going on in my life and walking through it,” he said.

His last special, “Good Grief,” on HBO Max in 2024, he said, helped him work through the loss of his mom, who died in 2020, and his dad. “It reminded me to laugh and life goes on,” he said. “When I cried on stage, I was going to take it out but I didn’t. I wanted the viewers to know I was hurting in real time. The clown wears a smile but sometimes he cries. People are enjoying the layers of the onion.”

Besides “Scary Movie 6,” Wayans has worked on other projects in metro Atlanta including his Netflix comedy film “Sextuplets” in 2019 and the Aretha Franklin biopic “Respect” in 2021.

“I love the city so much I’m thinking of becoming a resident,” Wayans said.

IF YOU GO

Marlon Wayans

3:30 p.m., 6 p.m., 8:30 p.m. Sunday, 7 p.m., 9:30 p.m., Monday, $61.74 and up, Helium Comedy Club, 3070 Windward Plaza, Alpharetta, heliumcomedyclub.com