What has happened to Eddie Murphy's Career?

[Dr. Evil]

His latest film "A Thousand Words" tanked big time this past weekend, giving him another failure at the Box office. Movieline has a good commentary on his film career:

You might have noticed a glaring omission in this morning's Weekend Receipts, but probably not: Even I couldn't be bothered to remember that an Eddie Murphy movie not only opened on Friday (to catastrophically bad reviews; the Rotten Tomatoes "fresh" rating remains at a super-rare 0%) but also concluded the weekend with a brutal $6.25 million gross &mdash making for a sixth-place finish and a $3,360-per-screen average. This would make A Thousand Words the third straight Murphy-led film to open under $7 million — quite the opposite from last fall's reasonably successful ensemble effort Tower Heist and his voice work in the blockbuster Shrek franchise. Factor in his Oscars-hosting debacle, and you kind of have to ask yourself: Is this it for Eddie?

Generally I'd try for a little more optimistic reading of the scenario; I mean, if we can devote time and space to attempting to rehabilitate Renee Zellweger's career, then Eddie Murphy is worth at least that much effort. But this is bad, if only because the confluence of Murphy's historic arrogance and decade-long decline in taste has produced the perfect storm of irrelevance: Older audiences who loved him in the '80s and could admire the creative risk he took in Dreamgirls have all but given up, and he doesn't move the needle among young audiences for whom Meet Dave, Imagine That and now A Thousand Words have proven sixth- or maybe fifth-choice moviegoing at best. There's nowhere to go, really, but back to second-billing behind guys like Ben Stiller and even — gasp — Mike Myers, the latter of whom isn't exactly tearing up the non-Shrek market himself.
But that won't happen. This is a guy who was going to ride the Academy Awards back to the cultural A-list, or at least let the wave elevate Tower Heist's profile last November and burnish the otherwise lackluster A Thousand Words in whatever post-Oscar afterglow he could get. Obviously, for reasons both known and unknown, that didn't transpire. There's a bottom line here, though, that gets to the larger problem with Eddie Murphy in 2012: If Murphy had wanted to preserve the job, then he could have. He would have. Instead, on the Monday after his latest cinematic miscarriage, we're talking about arguably the most complacent actor in Hollywood — a man perfectly happy to eat **** sandwiches and wipe his mouth with $100 bills as long as some retrograde studio boss is setting the table.
And I guess that's fine? It's not my money (nor yours, in all likelihood, unless you run DreamWorks, in which case you have bigger problems anyway). But its diminishing returns have transcended alarm into something more approximating schadenfreude: We wish less that Murphy would get back to the business of being trailblazingly funny or edgy or adventurous than that his next, now-routine clusterf*** will be the one that finally sends him into the sunset counting his money. Not that we necessarily want the worst for Murphy. He just seeks it out for himself, and the more it compromises his legacy — extraordinary films like 48 Hours, Delirious, Trading Places, Coming to America and others pushing a quarter-century old — the more it compromises us. Watching Beverly Hills Cop should not feel bittersweet.
So as much as I sincerely would love to be wrong, it looks like we've finally lost Eddie Murphy, movie star — a legend forsaken for Eddie Murphy, character actor, or worse yet, Eddie Murphy, king of paycheck inertia. And if we have indeed reached a point of no return, then let's have our laments here and now and be done with it. There's too much ambition worth experiencing and appreciating elsewhere.

http://www.movieline.com/2012/03/12/in-memoriam-eddie-murphy-movie-star/

There are a few ways he might be able to revive his career:

1. Tyler Perry- He can swallow his pride a bit and start doing a few Tyler Perry films. They may not be great films, but they cost very little to make and end up making a lot more money in overall grosses than the actual budget. Doing a few Tyler Perry films may revive his career a bit.
2. R-Rated Comedies- He was so awesome in those films, that I don't know what happened. He needs to go back to doing those films. Whether or not it's Todd Phillips or Judd Apatow or someone else, it doesn't matter.
3. Other Comic Actors- Some of his best work have been with other comedic actors like Arsenio Hall (Coming to America) and Dan Akyroyd (Trading Places) to name two. He worked with Ben Stiller in Tower Heist. I have no clue if he can work with the likes of Steve Carell or Will Ferrell but I don't think it hurts to try and find out what happens.

IMO, option 1 (Tyler Perry) would be the best option for him. He may never reach Oscar acclaim for doing those films, but at least he'll be in movies that actually make back the film's production budget (which Tyler's films usually do).

 

[Wesley Dodds]

Eddie Murphy happened to Eddie Murphy's career.
After the unfortunate incident with the prostitute in the 90's, seems like Murphy's people went into serious damage control and got him work in an increasingly dreadful succession of children's movies and family-friendly fare. Work he's been practically trapped in ever since.
Thing about it all is: Though those films may have largely succeeded in wiping the public's memory of his indiscretion, they've also made everyone forget why they liked him in the first place.

 

[Quasimod0]

He was great as the voice of donkey. :/

 

[chamber-music]

Eddie Murphy should do what Eddie Murphy does best which is R rated comedies but I don't even know if he could do that anymore.

I think Murphy lost his mojo a while ago.

 

[The Guard]

I don't remember him ever making anything but lame 80's movies and "comedies".

I can't believe he HAS to take the roles he does. He just seems to just enjoy making a particular type of movie that a lot of people got tired of a decade ago. He seems to have become a parody of himself.

But Murphy was fantastic in DREAMGIRLS, was a key cog in the Shrek films, and was in TOWER HEIST. And the man gets to play Hong Kong Phooey. How bad can it be?

 

[Rowsdower!]

Hey, he was awesome in Bowfinger. That movie kicked so much ass.

 

[The Morningstar]

I don't remember him ever making anything but lame 80's movies and "comedies".

I can't believe he HAS to take the roles he does. He just seems to just enjoy making a particular type of movie that a lot of people got tired of a decade ago. He seems to have become a parody of himself.

But Murphy was fantastic in DREAMGIRLS, was a key cog in the Shrek films, and was in TOWER HEIST. And the man gets to play Hong Kong Phooey. How bad can it be?

48 Hours, Beverly Hills Cop, Trading Places, Coming to America etc were anything but lame.

Murphy used to be awesome. Man i have fond memories of the aforementioned films. He is great as Donkey in the Shrek films though. But their time has passed.

 

[dark_b]

did someone force Eddie Murphy to NOT host the oscars?

 

[Secret Fawful]

Nobody remembers the amazing movie Life.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Eddie Murphy did pick some exceptionally bad movies to be in. Pluto Nash, Meet Dave, Beverly Hills Cop 3, and that new one.

No one's career could survive that.

 

[OsGom]

Eddie Murphy is a classic hollywood sell-out. When he "revitalized" his career and started cranking out bad pseudo-family comedies, you knew he had jumped the shark. I try not to knock actors for doing a film just for a paycheck but when that's all they are good for and they never try anything else, it makes them a sell-out.

 

[Thundercrack85]

did someone force Eddie Murphy to NOT host the oscars?

Someone blackmailing him certainly would explain some of his career choices.

 

[The Guard]

48 Hours, Beverly Hills Cop, Trading Places, Coming to America etc were anything but lame.

Murphy used to be awesome. Man i have fond memories of the aforementioned films. He is great as Donkey in the Shrek films though. But their time has passed.

And that's just it. Fond memories. I have fond memories of a lot of 80's movies. That doesn't mean the films were all that good. They aren't bad movies...I wouldn't reallIy consider them really good ones, though.

I guess my thing is...Eddie Murphy has had a career, but it was always going to be a certain type of career, and after a while, he wasn't going to be able to do that anymore, and would have to evolve a bit. He did, and sold out to stay popular for as long as he could, and people got tired of it.

And at this point, I've got to believe some part of him likes what he's doing enough to keep doing it.

I see Adam Sandler as following a similar career progression, though he's clearly had more success.

 

[El Payaso]

Yeah, I never thought he was actually funny. Not even back in the 80's. Sure, 48 hours and a couple of his comedies were good. But that's it. Now he has been tanking for like 20 years straight.

 

[Raiden]

Murphy has been making movies for the paychecks for awhile, so I'm not surprised to see the audience giving his movies lukewarm reception in recent years, and it shows that moviegoers aren't always sheeps who'd buy an overpriced ticket just to see a star on the big screen. Except for the first couple of Shrek (where he provided voice for the Donkey) and a supporting role in Dreamgirls, I don't think he has made any worthwhile movies in the last decade.

 

[Octoberist]

I think Murphy lives in his little own world where he has been oblivious to his career path. the entire time he had the power to get good roles but he chose to this path.

 

[Sentinel X]

He's greedy. They offer him 10 - 15 million dollars a film and he takes it even though the script is horrible. Now, I doubt he is able to even command that much given that he's been in so many bad movies.

 

[Raiden]

I think the real culprit is the movie studios who kept handing him millions to make these forgettable movies. Eddie Murphy will continue to star in turds like ATW if it means he can continue to buy mansions and sport cars, and go out with ladies half his age.

 

[Liam_H]

Funny this topic should pop up now, Scott Mendelson wrote something comparing his career to the Nutty Professor.

http://scottalanmendelson.blogspot.com/2012/03/real-eddie-murphy-is-gone-because.html

 

[GREEN =w= DAY]

Eddie should go back to doing R rated comedies. all his best films like Beverly Hills Cop, Trading Places, Coming to America, 48 Hours, etc were all R rated.

 

[Fanticon]

Donkey will always be a paycheck for Murphy, the shrek franchise was hugely successful. Tower Heist ended up doing okay at the box office. And every now and then he can pull off a Dreamgirls performance if he wants to but I think he enjoys the movies he's making. How else do you explain norbit?

 

[ShadowBoxer]

Unless he can pull off another dream girls type performance, Eddie's career is pretty much done.

 

[MydnightPhoenix]

I honestly don't know where this idea that Eddie's career has been in decline since the 90's has come from. In my community, at least, he has been making hits into the early 21st century, it was only when he did that Norbert movie that things started going wrong. People even forgave him for Pluto Nash and that movie where he was a robot. I believe his performance in Dreamgirls even got an Oscar nomination and rumor had it that he would have won if he didn't release Norbert around the time of voting.

 

[Project862006]

imo eddie and sandler have same career path

both got less funny the older they got

i think their youth helped out the minute they got older the steam wore off

 

[Thundercrack85]

But Adam Sandler was never funny or entertaining. Unless I missed something.