Eddie Murphy Bombs Again with “A Thousand Words” Despite Promotion on BET and Lifetime

Eddie Murphy Bombs Again with “A Thousand Words” Despite Promotion on BET and Lifetime

HE USED TO RULE THE BOX OFFICE

I still remember when Eddie Murphy would put out hit after box office hit.  48 hours, Another 48 hours, Trading Places, Coming to America, Beverly Hills Cops I, II, & III, The Golden Child, The Nutty Professor….the man just could not lose.

Now it seems he just can’t win.  His newest flick, “A Thousand Words” now has the distinguished honor of being included on Rotten Tomatoes list of worst reviewed films ever!!!

The sad part was, the movie was actually made back in 2008.  It was shelved with 3 separate release dates.  Scenes were edited and reshot in attempts to improve the film.  Someone decided that it was time to pull it out, dust it off and send it to the majors.

WHAT IS THE MOVIE ABOUT??

The movie plot is pretty decent, in a Disney Movie sort of way.  Eddie Murphy is a slick literary agent who says whatever he needs to when he needs to close a deal.  He tries to pull his slick-talk on a guru who is aware of his tricky ways and introduces Muphy’s character to karma in the way of a magic tree.   The magic tree appears in his yard, and with every word he says, another leaf drops off.  When the last leaf falls, then Eddie Murphy’s character will die.  So now Murphy has to find new ways to communicate , which lead him to be creative , “outrageous”, and funny.  Supposedly funny.

DID THEY MARKET THE MOVIE WRONG??

The show sold about $6.3 million dollars worth of tickets this weekend.  As crappy of an opening as it was, it was still better than Murphy’s lst two:

“Meet Dave” – $5.2 Million

“Imagine That” – $5.5 Million

Which was actually better then Meet Dave (5.2 million) and Image That (5.5 million).  Paramount decided he right audience would be African Americans and women, running multiple ads on BET and Lifetime, all to no avail.

CAN MURPHY BE A STAR AGAIN?

A star of Eddie Murphy’s caliber should be seeing double digit box office openings.  This isn’t all Eddie’s fault.  The movie itself is family oriented and was released amidst “the Lorax” and “John Carter”.  Not the smartest move.

Eddie needs to come back to his black R-rated comedy roots.  He was one of the few actors who took black comedy mainstream successfully.  Everyone, black and White, has seen “Coming to America”.  Everyone has seen “The Nutty Professor”.  He needs to make a black romantic comedy like a Boomerang 2012.  We know he can act because he was outstanding in “Dream Girls”.  I would pay money to see him in a well written comedy.  I think he still has talent, he just has to dig a lot deeper and look to his R-rated roots to find it.

COSMO