Fans were pumped when the long-awaited How High sequel was finally confirmed; however, some of that excitement quickly diminished when we learned the original stars would not reprise their leading roles.
That’s right. For those who haven’t heard, Redman and Method Man will not appear in How High 2 as many fans had predicted. Instead, Lil Yachty and Wild 'N Out's DC Young Fly will lead the stoner flick, which is expected to hit the small-screen in 2019.
Many people wondered why Red and Meth weren’t involved in the upcoming project, especially since they’ve spent the last decade hyping it up. Were they simply no longer interested? Or were they unfortunately blindsided? Well, according to Red, it was more so the latter.
During a recent interview on the Grass Routes podcast, the 48-year-old rapper/actor shared his side of the How High 2 story. He said he no ill feelings toward Yachty or Young Fly; however, he did not approve of how the situation went down—mostly because he and Red had no idea.
“Well, first of all, shout out to Lil Yachty and Young DC Fly (sic) […] I'm always with the youth [...] they’re just seizing the opportunity,” Red said in a phone interview. “[…] Long story short is that me and Meth was not aware that they were doing this transaction with the movie. I’m not mad at Yachty or DC Fly—like I said, it has nothing to do with them. And I’m not even upset because God always places things in the right position anyway; I’m just following the path.
“But my thing is when you have a brand, like Red and Meth, that kind of helped built and created this entity of How High and shooting a movie on marijuana and being in college […] those were all of our ideas. And when the deal came about, we wasn’t involved in it.”
Red claimed he and Meth were already working with Universal on the How High sequel and had even tapped a couple of writers. He said they conducted a table read and requested some changes, assuming the project was still moving forward. But he was unaware that another plan was in the works.
“What happened is that a branch that’s under Universal decided [they were] gonna shoot this movie. And they did not need permission from us because we didn’t own the rights to How High,” Red said. “[…] As far as me and Meth know, we were waiting on a new script to read for How High 2. Out of the blue, we get calls from everywhere, like, ‘Yo, Lil Yachty is starring in the movie,’ or ‘MTV picked up How High 2.’ And I’m like, ‘Wait a minute. We got writers that’s writing the movie. We got people up at Universal that’s giving us the green light. What’s going on?’”
Red claims he and Meth were asked to appear in the sequel, but declined the offer because of how everything unfolded.
Red said he and Meth are now working on Blackout! 3 and have plans to work another movie that they’ve “been sitting on” since How High's release.
You can hear the rapper's full explanation in the video above.
