Rave,
u are correct. meet dave was simply awful. not as bad as pluto nash, but damn
close.
--- On Fri, 8/7/09, ravenadal <ravena...@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: ravenadal <ravena...@yahoo.com>
Subject: [scifinoir2] Re: Despite Flops, Studios Want Eddie Murphy
To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com
Date: Friday, August 7, 2009, 9:45 AM
Everybody I know (well, everybody black I know) who went to
see "Imagine that," especially with young daughters/granddaug hters were
charmed by it. But, that is sort of the point of the article. I suspect
"Imagine that," will do well on DVD and will get many plays on Pay TV.
Even "Meet Dave," which is awful, made $50 million worldwide on an alleged
budget of $60 million.
~rave!
--- In scifino...@yahoogro ups.com, Augustus Augustus <jazzynupe_007@ ...>
wrote:
>
> Rave,
>
> i see where the article is going, but i disagree with the last movie being a
> flop. imagine that might not have made a ton of money, but my daughter and
> i truly enjoyed it. she is waiting on the dvd. made me take her 2 see it
> twice.
>
> Fate.
>
> --- On Fri, 8/7/09, ravenadal <ravena...@. ..> wrote:
>
> From: ravenadal <ravena...@. ..>
> Subject: [scifinoir2] Despite Flops, Studios Want Eddie Murphy
> To: scifino...@yahoogro ups.com
> Date: Friday, August 7, 2009, 9:22 AM
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Â
>
>
>
>
>
> http://www.nytimes. com/2009/ 06/25/movies/ 25eddie.html
>
>
>
> June 25, 2009
>
> Despite Flops, Studios Want Eddie Murphy
>
> By BROOKS BARNES
>
>
>
> LOS ANGELES â€" "If Eddie Murphy's career were an injured horse, it would be
> shot and the carcass buried in the remotest part of the desert to ensure no
> one ever stumbled upon it."
>
>
>
> That harsh sentence, written on June 12 by Rick Bentley in The Fresno Bee in
> California, is as good an example as any of the prevailing sentiment about
> Mr. Murphy these days. With two big flops in a row ("Imagine That" and "Meet
> Dave"), another risky project on the way ("A Thousand Words") and a diva
> reputation, people seem to be confused. Why does Hollywood keep hiring this
> man?
>
>
>
> The answer â€" multifaceted but almost universally agreed upon by moviedom's
> power players â€" offers insights into how the gears of the modern motion
> picture business grind.
>
>
>
> Mr. Murphy is still considered Hollywood royalty, if no longer a member of
> the A-list then the solid B-plus. One reason is that, contrary to
> conventional wisdom, studios have long memories.
>
>
>
> People who prophesied that his career was over in 2002 with "The Adventures
> of Pluto Nash," which cost about $100 million to make but only sold about $7
> million worldwide in tickets, looked awfully foolish when "Norbit" arrived
> five years later. It cost about $60 million and featured him in a fat suit,
> sold $159 million worldwide in tickets and was a smash on DVD.
>
>
>
> "He is explosive, given the right project, the right circumstances, the right
> concept, the right director," said Jeffrey Katzenberg, the chief executive of
> DreamWorks Animation and a friend. What of the notion that Mr. Murphy has
> lost his movie mojo? "Absolute nonsense," Mr. Katzenberg said.
>
>
>
> Mr. Murphy, 48, is one of a declining number of actors whose name alone can
> get a movie made. While studios are increasingly balking at paying top dollar
> for brand-name actors â€" and Mr. Murphy still asks for $20 million a picture
> and a cut of the gross â€" they still want to be in business with them
> because they believe it lessens their risk.
>
>
>
> "The challenge with Eddie is that you have to put his brand on the right tin
> can," said the consultant James Ulmer, who compiles the biannual report "The
> Ulmer Scale," which rates the global bankability of actors. "His audiences
> are very straitjacketed in their expectations of him, and by that I mostly
> mean fat suit, fat suit, fat suit."
>
>
>
> In addition Mr. Murphy's name is a marketing hook on a DVD, and he remains
> one of the few American comedians who can deliver results overseas.
>
>
>
> Hollywood understands that big-time comedy careers are often volatile. Plot
> the box office runs of Will Ferrell and Mike Myers against those of dramatic
> stars like Will Smith and Tom Cruise, and the comedians' are all over the
> map. Because comedies tend to be easier to film (if not to perform), those
> players are at bat more often, and so a few misses are considered normal.
>
>
>
> That's not to say Mr. Murphy isn't paying a price for his track record.
> Paramount recently rejected a biopic about Richard Pryor that had Mr. Murphy
> attached to star. The studio's plans for a fourth "Beverly Hills Cop" are
> also stalled. Web sites like Studio System (studiosystem. com) that track
> movie projects list a remake of "The Incredible Shrinking Man" as one of his
> next films, but Universal Pictures put that project on the back burner more
> than a year ago (around the time "Meet Dave" tanked).
>
>
>
> Arnold Robinson, Mr. Murphy's publicist, said he would not trouble his client
> with an interview request from a newspaper. "Mr. Murphy does not do print
> interviews," he said in an e-mail, adding, "For his age and body of work
> there are only one or two other actors that can compare to his career box
> office numbers."
>
>
>
> Mr. Murphy has other potential projects floating around â€" a third "Nutty
> Professor" is in development at Universal â€" and he has a guaranteed hit
> next spring in DreamWorks' "Shrek Forever After," in which he reprises his
> vocal role as the sassy Donkey.
>
>
>
> But the star also has difficult decisions to make about his career. His
> longtime agent, James A. Wiatt, the chairman of William Morris Endeavor
> Entertainment, is leaving the agency. Mr. Wiatt declined to comment, but a
> spokesman for the agency said it expected Mr. Murphy to remain a client.
>
>
>
> He hasn't been doing himself many favors when it comes to staying in
> Hollywood's good graces. It didn't help, for instance, when he fought a
> paternity claim by the former Spice Girl Melanie Brown in 2007, only to have
> a DNA test prove him wrong.
>
>
>
> And he can be difficult when it comes to promoting his movies. He arrived at
> the "Imagine That" press junket nearly two hours late â€" far from normal
> behavior for stars, even major ones â€" and was 45 minutes late to the
> premiere. At least he showed up; last summer, he failed to attend the Los
> Angeles premiere of "Meet Dave."
>
>
>
> Mr. Murphy, according to his publicist, was unable to attend because he had
> already started filming "A Thousand Words." That excuse was tough for 20th
> Century Fox to swallow, since the director of both films, Brian Robbins,
> managed to do so.
>
>
>
> Mr. Robinson also said "Imagine That" was not a failure. The comedy, in which
> Mr. Murphy played a financial executive who enters his daughter's imaginary
> world, cost about $55 million to make and tens of millions more to market.
> North American ticket sales appear to have topped out at about $12 million.
>
>
>
> "Paramount Pictures will make money on `Imagine That' when all is said and
> done, because it was not an expensive film to make," Mr. Robinson said. (Wall
> Street analysts say the movie was such a disaster for Paramount that its
> corporate owner, Viacom, may be forced to take a write-off.)
>
>
>
> Mr. Murphy's next chance for a comeback will be early next year, when
> Paramount plans to release "A Thousand Words," a high-concept comedic drama
> about a fast-talking agent who realizes he only has 1,000 words left to utter
> before he dies.
>
>
>
> It's a risky bet, and not just because there is no fat suit involved. The $60
> million movie is something of a stepchild at the studio, having been put into
> production by DreamWorks Pictures, which in turn left the project behind when
> it cut corporate ties to Paramount last year.
>
