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‘Barbershop 3’ Trailer: Michael Ealy Absence Confuses, Upsets Fans

By Jonathan Franks
Published on: 08:53 PST, Nov 24, 2015

The first trailer for Barbershop 3: The Next Cut debuted Tuesday — and actor Michael Ealy is not in it!

Released online by Warner Bros. Pictures, the two-minute clip features quite a few familiar faces from the first two Barbershop films, including Ice Cube, Cedric the Entertainer, Eve, Anthony Anderson, and Queen Latifah.

Actor Troy Garity even reprises his own role as Isaac Rosenberg in a brief appearance during the trailer, visiting the shop as a customer instead of one of its employees.

However, actor Michael Ealy apparently does not make an appearance at all in the clip.

According to JET magazine, this third installment of the popular franchise focuses more on what is happening outside of the shop instead of inside of the family-owned establishment.

In the first film, Barbershop (2002), Calvin Palmer Jr. — played by Ice Cube — deals with the internal conflict of keeping the struggling shop instead of selling it to a crooked loan shark. In the second film, Barbershop 2 (2004), Calvin and the crew fight to save their business from being outdone by a massive rival competitor that opens up across the street.

Barbershop 2
(Photo by Evan Agostini/Getty Images)

In Barbershop 3: The Next Cut, the barbershop and neighboring beauty salon have apparently joined together to form one united shop, working hard to clean up the crime-filled streets of Southside Chicago.

A host of new faces have joined the cast, breathing new life into the film’s franchise, including Common, Regina Hall, Lamorne Morris (The New Girl), Deon Cole (Black-ish) as well as rappers Nicki Minaj and Tyga. Even with the addition of so many popular celebrities, a lot of fans and critics are complaining about the Barbershop 3 trailer simply because Michael Ealy is not reprising his popular role as bad boy Ricky Nash.

During a June 2014 interview, according to BlackNews.com, Michael Ealy claimed that he didn’t know anything about Barbershop 3. When the interviewer confirmed that the third movie was confirmed, the Perfect Guy star said “they haven’t come to [him] yet.”

Does Michael Ealy simply not like filming sequels to box-office hits? That is likely not the case since the 42-year-old actor starred in the 2014 Tim Story-directed sequel Think Like a Man Too.

In the same interview, he spoke about the comparable successes of both Barbershop and Think Like a Man.

“I think what happened on Barbershop also kinda happened on ‘Think Like a Man,’ and the irony is that both pictures were made with the same director, Tim Story. It just doesn’t happen often that the movie you shot for $12 million ends up making $90 million. That’s very rare. So, when you catch lightning in a bottle like that, you jump at an opportunity to come back and do a sequel. You’re lucky if one out ten movies you make gets a sequel.”

Even though Ealy claimed that he knew nothing about Barbershop 3, he did say that he would consider joining a third installment of the Think Like a Man franchise “if we can bring back the same producer, cast and director.”

Michael Ealy Barbershop 3
(Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Sony Pictures Entertainment)

Perhaps the fact that each of the Barbershop movies, including the upcoming third installment, have different directors may have played a role in Michael Ealy’s absence.

As of right now, neither Ice Cube nor Michael Ealy has officially explained why Ealy is not bringing Ricky Nash back to the big-screen in Barbershop 3.

[Image Credit: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images]

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