Eddie Murphy is back in the news due to the imminent premiere on Netflix of ‘Hollywood Super Detective: Axel F.’, the fourth installment of the legendary action saga that began 40 years ago. It is true that now he is not the big star that he became at the time, but his name is still an important hook for some viewers. That’s why he received countless offers at the time, and there are a couple of films to which it especially hurt him to have to say no.
“That sounds like it’s going to be bullshit.”
On the one hand, Dan Aykroyd He has mentioned on more than one occasion that he wrote the script for ‘Ghostbusters’ with Murphy in mind for one of the main roles – it has never been entirely clear for which one, though. However, the protagonist of ‘I am Dolemite’ had no choice but to say no because he had previously committed to ‘Super Detective in Hollywood’as revealed on Jimmy Fallon’s show.
However, it is another film released in 1988 which he still regrets having rejected. As our colleagues at Filmstarts remember, he himself highlights it above all the others that he rejected as the greatest success of all of them, commenting the following about it:
The only movie I turned down that was a big hit is ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’ I was going to play Bob Hoskins, but I reacted by thinking, “What? Animation and people… that sounds like it’s going to be bullshit.” Now I feel like an idiot every time I see it.
‘Who cheated on roger rabbit?’ It was a huge commercial success, grossing $351 million worldwide against a budget of $50, and it was also a great film. However, Murphy doesn’t have much reason to complain about what he did that year either, since that was when it was released ‘The Prince of Zamunda’one of the biggest financial triumphs of his career, since it earned 288 million in theaters when it had cost 36. Of course, that film is based on an idea by Murphy himself, so he could have perfectly postponed it a little to make room in his agenda to that of Robert Zemeckis.
In fact, it just so happens that Both films arrived in theaters in the United States just a week apart from each other.. First was ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’ the one that hit hard and then ‘The Prince of Zamunda’ dethroned it at the top.
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