‘Beverly Hills Cop’, ‘The Prince of Zamunda’, ‘The Nutty Professor’: Eddie Murphy can look back on quite a few comedy hits. But in the 2000s, the career of “Dr. Dolittle” stars began to fade despite an Oscar nomination for “Dreamgirls” — not only did his films continue to underperform at the box office, critics outdid each other with scathing words.
And then there are the Golden Raspberrys, the embarrassing award that was intended as a negative counterbalance to the Oscars – and which has been awarded since 1981 to all films and stars that have already received a lot of criticism from critics and audiences.
Murphy received the Anti-Oscar five times, he was nominated ten more times. In 2008, he received three Razzies for the various roles he played in the mega-flop ‘Norbit’, and two years later he was named worst actor of the decade. This has not left the 62-year-old unscathed: In the meantime, he even planned to quit acting altogether!
Eddie Murphy: ‘The bastards gave me raids’
In the podcast “Murphy talked about the time he thought about turning his back on Hollywood once and for all:“I’ve made bad movies,” the comedian said. “I was like, ‘This shit is not fun. They give me raids. The bastards gave me the Razzie for Worst Actor of All Time. (…) Maybe it’s time to take a break.’ I only wanted to take a year off, and then suddenly six years went by. I could have just sat on the couch and never gotten rid of her, but I didn’t want the last thing they saw me do to be stupid.”
So Murphy worked on a comeback and from that moment on actually celebrated one success after another: He promptly received a Golden Globe nomination in 2020 for the biopic “Dolemite Is My Name,” and its belated sequel “The Prince of Zamunda 2” became one of streaming service Amazon Prime Video’s most successful films ever, despite mixed reviews, and in In 2020 he received the so-called Golden Raspberry Redeemer Prize. “The plan was to do ‘Dolemite Is My Name,’ ‘Saturday Night Live,’ ‘The Prince of Zamunda 2’ and some stand-up to see how I felt,” Murphy said. “At least now they know I’m still funny.”
The plan has completely worked out: Although Murphy is seen less in theaters than on streaming, he is still there very regularly. The Christmas comedy “Candy Cane Lane” was released this Friday on Prime Video and for Netflix, Murphy will reprise the signature role of Beverly Hills cop Axel Foley for the fourth time.