Reclaiming his throne
Eddie Murphy on the rise again with ‘Coming 2 America’
The Eddie Murphy comeback continues next week when the big-screen “Coming 2 America” sequel streams on Amazon. Like a fourth “Beverly Hills Cop,” which has yet to begin production, “Coming 2 America” is a years-later enterprise for Murphy, who not only produces but plays multiple roles.
The original in 1988 is beloved and regarded as a benchmark in Black cinema. A romantic comedy, it told of Murphy’s crown prince Akeem Joffer of the (fictional) African nation Zamunda. Bolting from an arranged marriage Akeem, just 21, arrived in New York with his friend Semmi (Arsenio Hall, the talk show host) and pretended to be poor “goat herders.” They live in a squalid Long Island apartment so that Akeem can find a woman who loves him not for his fortune and status but himself.
“Coming” featured a distinguished Black cast — James Earl Jones, John Amos, Samuel L. Jackson, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Madge Sinclair.
“First, let’s start off by noting that the original ‘Coming to America,’ the very first one, is the first movie in the history of movies that had an all-Black cast that was successful all around the world. All around the world. The very first one ever,” noted Murphy at a virtual press conference.
“There’s just a handful of movies that have had all-Black casts that have been successful all around the world. You could count them on one hand — and you’ll have fingers left over.
“And ‘Coming 2 America’ is like the legacy of the first movie. It’s accessible to all audiences. It’s just about family, and love, and doing the right thing, and tradition.
That’s what the movie is about.
“And it’s these amazing images of Black kings and queens and princesses and all this stuff. ‘Black Panther’ did it: the second movie that had Black kings.”
“Coming 2 America,” added Murphy, 60 this April, “is like the only time we’re seen this, with just some people in the movie telling this story about human beings. Stuff that everybody can relate to.
“The themes are timeless. Love, marrying somebody for who you want to, who you really love. It’s a lot of stuff that’s in it. ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ has a lot of stuff that’s similar, images and similar themes.”
The key to this reboot, he said, was the right screenplay. “It was maybe about three drafts of the script in, we got it to where the structure and the narrative thread was strong enough to have me say, ‘OK, we have a movie here. Now we just have to bring a young writer in and put that modern spin on it’ — enter Kenya Barris,” who’s triumphed writing “Black-ish” for TV and the raunchy “Girls Trip” that made a star of Tiffany Haddish.
Murphy’s comeback will continue on Netflix, but only once the next “Beverly Hills Cop” script is deemed good to go.