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That was Eddie Murphy’s answer to the question of whether he would re-team with John Landis, director of
Trading Places and
Coming To America. This ice-cold quip, referring to an actor who died on set in a horrific accident while Landis was filming his segment of
Twilight Zone: The Movie, was not issued years later, after the dust settled on a long-term estrangement and the accident was a distant memory. Murphy said this at a press conference in 1988. While promoting
Coming To America. The film they had just finished making.
It was their second of three movies together.
In an interview with
Rolling Stone, the Laker Girl-turned-pop star listed her
Coming to America scene as one of the top moments of her choreography career. “This was one of my moments of having to really prove myself, because I was still pretty new in my career as a choreographer,” Abdul said. “John Landis, the director, wanted the person that choreographed Janet Jackson. I was still a Laker Girl. I went in and he looked at me and said, What are you, a teenager? And I said, Yes, I am! He basically was telling me, What do you know about African dancing? And this is my whole thing when becoming a choreographer: I ll just tell everyone yes, I know exactly what I m doing, and then I ll figure it out later. ”
Like many people across the world, the sudden onset of COVID-19 shuttered Eddie Murphy s plans for 2020, which included a return to the medium that helped set him on the path to superstardom.
But on Thursday, during an appearance on Kevin Hart s SiriusXM s podcast Comedy Gold Minds, the comedic legend revealed that he still wants to do new stand-up comedy performances once the pandemic ends. My plan was to do Dolemite, Saturday Night Live, Coming 2 America, and then do stand up. And then the pandemic hit, and it shut the whole s t down, Murphy, who turns 60 next month, explained.
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Director Craig Brewer said he came up with the idea to give a hat tip to Trading Places.
The Eddie Murphy comedy is also referred to in 1988 s Coming to America. I m still a believer that there s a crossover movie to do with Coming to America and Trading Places, Brewer told Insider. Coming 2 America is filled with callbacks to the first movie. But there s also a scene in the sequel that gives a shout out to another classic Eddie Murphy movie.
In the scene where Lavelle (Jermaine Fowler), the illegitimate son of Akeem (Eddie Murphy), goes for a job interview, he sits down and calls the person interviewing him (played by Colin Jost) Mr. Duke. That should ring a bell for Murphy fans, but then the next moment should really drive it home when Duke tells Lavelle to only call him Calvin because my father is Mr. Duke and my grandfather and great uncle who founded Duke & Duke.