How Eddie Murphy self-sabotaged his way to salvation: “Oh, get the fuck out of here!”
Resting on his laurels and coasting through so many terrible movies is the reason why Eddie Murphy was rendered irrelevant as a mainstream Hollywood concern by the end of the 2000s, but the first time it happened, he intentionally took a loss to gain a much bigger and more important win.
For a while, it seemed like he could do no wrong. From his big-screen debut in 48 Hrs to Coming to America, the actor and comedian conquered Saturday Night Live, stand-up comedy, and the silver screen without breaking a sweat, becoming one of the most popular and highest-paid stars in the industry.
Once the cracks first started to show, though, they only became deeper. Harlem Nights was his first notable bust, which saw Murphy panic and jump straight into a sure thing, Another 48 Hrs. He only made the sequel because it paid well and he needed a hit, but it did more harm than good in the short term.
When Boomerang and The Distinguished Gentleman didn’t live up to expectations at the box office, he did the exact same thing again, and he loathed Beverly Hills Cop III even more. However, he had a passion project tucked away in his back pocket, but he couldn’t break the emergency glass until he excised himself from his contract with the studio he’d called home for over a decade.
Wes Craven’s horror comedy was another commercial disappointment, and to add insult to injury, it took a battering from critics. Murphy saw it as a means to an end, and he was proven right. “The only way I was able to do Nutty Professor and to get out of my Paramount deal, I had to do Vampire in Brooklyn,” he told Rolling Stone.
“But you know what ruined that movie? The wig,” he continued. “I walked out in that long-haired wig, and people said, ‘Oh, get the fuck out of here! What the hell is this?’ It’s those little things.” Now that he was no longer tethered to Paramount, Murphy upped sticks to Universal, and in a tribute to one of his comedy heroes, Peter Sellers, he sought to play as many characters as possible in the same film.
With the law of diminishing returns starting to set in for the first time after several flops and widely derided movies in a row, the knives were out for Murphy. He was fully aware that he was being called washed-up, a has-been, and yesterday’s man, and The Nutty Professor was his way of sticking it to his detractors and reminding them who he was, and what he was all about.
It could have backfired, but it didn’t. The picture made almost $275 million from cinemas to become the biggest non-Beverly Hills Cop hit of his career, earned the best reviews that any of his films or performances had seen in years, and landed him on the Golden Globes shortlist for ‘Best Actor – Musical or Comedy’, although Murphy isn’t the only one who thinks he deserved an Oscar nod, too.
Vampire in Brooklyn might be one of the most forgettable features he’s ever made, but in its own way, it was the most important, since the contractual obligation allowed him to revive his fading star.
