The 1994 movie Eddie Murphy swore he’d never, ever make: “There’s no reason to do it”
You should never take anything an actor says at face value, since they’ve developed a funny habit of doing exactly the things they swore they would never do. Like Eddie Murphy, who was adamant that there was one movie he’d never, ever make, no matter how much money he was offered.
Did anyone even believe him at the time? That’s hard to say, since his nickname was literally ‘Money’, and he’d grown accustomed to rolling in it after breaking out as the single biggest movie star in the business in the late 1980s, and anybody’s head can be turned with a stinking pile of cash.
Still, there was a period when Murphy fancied being taken more seriously. He’d become a household name as the foul-mouthed, razor-sharp, and endlessly charismatic face of Saturday Night Live before effortlessly segueing into cinema to become a guaranteed box office draw, with the recurring theme being that he’d always use the same schtick.
He attempted to diversify by writing and directing the period-set caper, Harlem Nights, only to end up with his lowest-grossing headline release yet. He played his first romantic lead in Boomerang, and while it made money, it wasn’t rapturously received. When he tackled politics, The Distinguished Gentleman was his worst-reviewed star vehicle yet and a commercial disappointment.
Having already returned to the well before with Another 48 Hrs and instantly regretted doing it, regardless of how much he was paid for sleepwalking through an action comedy sequel, before his reunion with Nick Nolte had even been released, Murphy couldn’t have made himself clearer that it wasn’t something he’d even contemplate doing again.
“There’s no reason to do it,” he said in 1989, referring to a third Beverly Hills Cop. “I don’t need the money, and it’s not gonna break any new ground. The only reason to do a Cop III is to beat the bank, and Paramount ain’t gonna write me no cheque as big as I want to do something like that. In fact, if I do a Cop III, you can safely say, ‘Ooh, he must have got a lot of money!'”
Fast forward to September 1993, and Murphy was on set for the first day’s shooting on Beverly Hills Cop III. What changed his mind? Exactly the thing he’d said would change his mind, with a $15million payday evidently enough to make the star backtrack on his vow, take the money, and bring Axel Foley back to the screen.
Clearly, Paramount could write him a big enough cheque to make him want to do something like that, and having refused to learn his lesson from Another 48 Hrs, the results were much the same: Murphy trashed the threequel as “garbage,” confessing that it was a “bad decision” to put the money first.
He wasn’t entirely repentant, though, since he did note that, in the wake of Beverly Hills Cop III‘s critical evisceration, “$15million was worth having Roger Ebert’s thumb up my ass.” There’s only one thing that talks loudest in Hollywood, and it’s always got a dead president’s face on it.
