COMING 2 AMERICA
Thirty-three years after the beloved original, Eddie Murphy returns as Prince Akeem in COMING 2 AMERICA. Total Film chats exclusively with Murphy and his team about recreating Zamunda, reprising Reverends and revisiting an ’80s classic.
Eddie Murphy on his royal return to an iconic role(s).
All hail Prince Akeem. When Total Film is connected on Zoom to Eddie Murphy’s residence, the first thing glimpsed is an empty burgundy leather chair in front of an ornate fireplace. It’s just after midday in Los Angeles and Murphy is moving around the room in the background before he takes to his seat – or should that be throne? Murphy rarely does press, so for TF to be granted an exclusive audience with him really does feel like meeting royalty – aptly so, given we’re here to talk about Coming 2 America, the long-awaited sequel to one of Murphy’s all-time greats.
Released in 1988, Coming To America arrived when Murphy was at his height, after Trading Places, Beverly Hills Cop and The Golden Child, among others, turned him into a superstar. CTA was different, showing Murphy at his sweetest as Akeem, the prince from the fictional African kingdom of Zamunda who comes to America to find his bride – and winds up in Queens, New York, where he meets Lisa (Shari Headley), the beautiful, hard-working daughter of Cleo McDowell (John Amos), owner of a fast-food restaurant that’s definitely not borrowed anything from McDonald’s.
“I think there’s a uniqueness to Coming To America,” says Murphy. “They hadn’t made a lot of movies like that, movies with Black people. As popular as it is around the world with everybody, Black people really, really love Coming To America. And I think it’s because the movie is a romanticfantasy-comedy. We don’t see that. Usually when we see ourselves on the screen, there is some drama, and the movie is about some social injustice. The actor might look into the camera and scream [at the top of his voice, leaning into his camera] ‘Wake up!’ Some heavy thing going on.”
Murphy, dressed in a jet-black t-shirt, is warming to his theme. “The movie Coming To America is all Black cast. But the movie is not about
race. It’s not about any of that stuff. It’s about a guy trying to find his true love. So it’s just a human thing. And it’s refreshing when we see it because, like I said… most of the stuff that comes off the screen from us is heavy, heavy stuff. It’s not just: go escape. Coming To America is pure escapism… no matter who you are, you can relate to it.”
Directed by John Landis, it also remains one of the 1980s’ 24-carat comedies – with Murphy and co-star Arsenio Hall taking on multiple roles, under swathes of prosthetics, as the various Queens folk encountered by Akeem and his friend and aide Semmi (Hall). Characters like Hall’s preacher Reverend Brown, Murphy’s terrible soul singer Randy Watson, and the back-talking barbers of My-T-Sharp. Not forgetting Saul, the aged white Jewish guy – played by an entirely unrecognisable Murphy – who chews the fat in the barbershop.
All these characters are cemented in popular culture, which is why Murphy had no fear about making a sequel. “The original movie is kind of part of the cultural zeitgeist. It’s everywhere still. Like on Halloween, people dress up like characters from the movie… and on Christmas they run Coming To America 24 hours straight on VH1, back-to-back. And little catchphrases from the movie kind of stayed in the air. So the characters are still around. It’s not like it is 30 years ago [since we saw it]. You could watch it on TV every other week. So I wasn’t nervous. I was excited once we got the script right.”
In development for over five years, that script came from original writers Barry W. Blaustein and David Sheffield, before writer-producer Kenya Barris (Black-ish) beefed it up. Yet the production really took shape after Murphy worked with director Craig Brewer on 2019’s blaxploitation-bio Dolemite Is My Name. “I think it was probably the second screening [of Dolemite] that we had, just for Eddie and Arsenio and a few others,” explains Brewer. “Afterwards, he was just like, ‘Hey, man, want to do
Coming To America 2?’ And I was like, ‘Man, any opportunity to just work with you again.’”
Given the high esteem the original is held in, Brewer understood the delicate task at hand. “Luckily, having done the [2011] remake of Footloose, I understand that part of the job is to be OK with laying yourself down on the railroad tracks a little bit.”
Brewer is relaxed about their intentions for Coming 2 America. “The first film was a big bang of comedy and culture back in the day. All we’re trying to do is just tap in with some characters that we think can exist beyond that first movie. We want to see where they are 30 years later.” He feels it’s an advantage returning three decades on, rather than a couple of years down the line. “There’s more to talk about, there’s more humour in checking back with old characters and seeing what they’re dealing with now.”
With Zamunda prosperous, Akeem is still married to Lisa and has three daughters of his own. “I like who he’s turned into,” says Murphy. “He’s aged in a cool way.” But then comes the bombshell: he has an illegitimate son. His ailing father, King Jaffe Joffer (James Earl Jones), wants Akeem to return to America and find his male heir, thereby securing the kingdom against invasion from neighbouring country Nextdoria (geddit?) and its warlord-like leader General Izzi (Wesley Snipes), still smarting at his sister Imani (Vanessa Bell Calloway)
‘i think there’s a uniqueness to coming to america. they hadn’t made a lot of movies like that’ eddie murphy
being rejected by Akeem in the original film before he met Lisa.
Brewer recalls gauging social-media reaction as soon as the first trailer dropped. “You immediately heard people saying, ‘Wait a minute? Akeem doesn’t have a son! When did he have it? He’s only been with Lisa.’ And what I love about it, that’s exactly what Akeem said: ‘Father, I did not sow my royal oats!’” Exactly how Akeem sired his offspring Lavelle (Jermaine Fowler), a “broke-ass” nobody from Queens, demanded one of Coming 2 America’s most challenging set-pieces, with the plot flashing back to the bar scene in the original when Akeem and Semmi were essentially speed-dating.
It’s here where Akeem meets Lavelle’s garrulous mother Mary (Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones) for a one-night stand that, due to the inhalation of some “ceremonial herbs”, he cannot remember. Brewer blends clips from the original scene with new footage, which he shot in the bar as recreated in detail by production designer Jefferson Sage and his team, while Murphy and Hall were de-aged digitally. “They didn’t have to do it to me, though,” Jones tells TF, “you know, cuz I look young.”
Murphy had seen this tech in its infancy, notably in 2015’s Schwarzenegger-starring Terminator Genisys. “When Arnold came walking out, where he looked young back in the day… that’s when I got the whole idea, if we continue that scene, we can do that,” says Murphy. “That’s when the idea kind of clicked.” Even so, it was hugely difficult to pull off, remembers Hall, who was required to precisely repeat Semmi spitting out his drink when a red-dress-wearing woman (also Hall) promises to tear them both apart. “I remember at three o’clock in the morning, trying to get that scene right,” he says. “We had to be very patient.”
A fast-talking, f-bomb-dropping livewire, next to Murphy’s more laid-back persona, Hall was delighted to be back in character(s). “Semmi is so easy to play, because he’s almost the opposite of Arsenio in every possible way,” he grins. “So he’s an easy character to jump into, immediately. And I have a personal friendship with Eddie. So finding that chemistry is very, very easy because I know him like a book.” Brewer calls working with Hall like slipping on your old favourite jacket. “It’s like ‘Man, I look good in this, this feels great.’ And that was Arsenio. Man, we need more Arsenio in the world!”
No question, Brewer’s sequel pays some serious fan service, with the trailer promising Easter eggs aplenty. With Murphy and Hall set to reprise old favourites, and the possibility of cameos to look forward to, Coming 2 America promises a pleasingly nostalgic feel, an opportunity to spend time with old friends you’ve not seen in years.
Murphy speaks of the “warmness” that these reunions engendered on set. “And there’s a thing… if you’re in a movie, and it’s a good movie, and it’s a movie that stands the test of time and it’s around… those people that you’re in that movie with, whenever you see them, you say ‘Hey!’ It’s this connection that you have. And it’s the same if you’re in a bad movie, you don’t want to see any of those actors. I run into people from the cast of [2002 flop] Pluto Nash, I turn and walk!”
Needless to say, the return of Murphy and Hall’s multiple characters are what the fans are truly waiting for. Jones admits it was surreal to witness. “I was going crazy over Arsenio as the preacher because it was just like, ‘Holy shit! I remember how funny this dude was!’ And he didn’t miss a beat. When he walked in, all of us literally fell about laughing.” Sometimes spending five hours in the make-up chair, “I hate putting it on,” says Hall. “But once
I get it on, I’ll keep it on for a week, because it allows you to morph into someone else.”
Hall also plays a new character, Baba. A role originally intended for comedian Dave Chappelle, he’s a 100-year-old shaman in Zamunda who first reports of the existence of Akeem’s son. “When I did Baba, I went De Niro
‘this was the movie that showed african royalty to a mass audience for the first time. And so we can’t disappoint’ craig brewer
on him,” says Hall. “I decided that from the time I leave the trailer… I would stay Baba. I think it was annoying to Craig because he knows it’s me. But he would be talking to me and I would say [in Baba’s crone-like voice] ‘Whatever you would like Mr. Brewer!’ And never come out of character.”
While the title may say Coming 2 America, there’s also a lot more of the kingdom of Zamunda this time. “The first one took place in Queens,” says Murphy. “[This time] we wanted to go to Africa.” With Lavelle, Mary and his Uncle Reem (Tracy Morgan) soon ferried to the luxurious Zamundan royal household, as Lavelle learns how to become a prince My Fair Lady-style, expect a flip-reverse of the original. “They’re all the fish out of water,” adds Murphy.
Although that’s true, the nononsense Mary settles in swiftly, enjoying the perks of regal living. “Mary is just who she is already,” says Jones, when TF asks about her journey through the film. “When she gets to Zamunda… she’s thinking, ‘Oh, this is great for my son.’ You know what I’m saying? I think for Mary…it was about, ‘My son gets to meet his father, and – oh my God – his father turned out to be the Prince of Zamunda!’”
Shooting in Atlanta, Georgia, at Tyler Perry Studios, creating Zamunda was a real pressure, says Brewer. “This movie is important, especially to African American culture. Because even before Black Panther… this was the movie that showed African royalty to a mass audience for the first time. And so we can’t disappoint. We have to go further with it.” No detail was left to chance, whether it was the design of the Zamundan crest or the return of certain attire. “James Earl Jones wore his original crown from the first movie,” says the director.
While the story had to feel relevant to now – notably, the women are fighting for a more equal role in the archaic Zamundan society, and Akeem’s oldest daughter Meeka, played by KiKi Layne, is an accomplished stick-fighter – Brewer knew Akeem’s country needed to feel timeless. “It needed to be, in spirit, a fairytale landscape. Because that’s one thing that Eddie would always say to us: ‘Don’t get caught up too much in just doing stupid shit. Coming To America is a fairytale.’” Murphy nods in agreement. “That’s what makes the movie unique,” he says. “And this picture captured this same spirit of the original movie.”
Without wanting to go into detail and spoil possible cameos, Brewer believes that the films’s tone serves as a tribute to original director John Landis. “I mean, his films were a major influence on me. The Blues Brothers all the way to Three Amigos. They’re hilarious movies, but they had a musical style and a rhythm to them.”
Murphy seems so pleased with the way Coming 2 America has turned out, he’s ready to revisit Akeem in the future. “The movie actually came together so well, I have written Part Three,” he says. Like a comedic version of Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, perhaps? “Part Three doesn’t happen till I’m 75. In 16 years. I’m serious. We do Part Three in 16 years.” It’s a tantalising thought. Murphy pauses, thinking of some of the more elderly characters, and bursts out laughing. “I don’t think the barbers will be in it!”
COMING 2 AMERICA IS AVAILABLE ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO FROM 5 MARCH