EXCLUSIVE: Eddie Murphy Talks Bringing Coming 2 America to Life

Eddie Murphy is back in the next movie in the Coming to America series, Coming 2 America. As writer and one of the stars of the movie, Murphy opened up about bringing the second movie to life, welcoming back so many original cast members, Dave Chappelle originally being part of the movie, and so much more.

On deciding to bring Coming 2 America to life:
“It was maybe about three drafts of the script in we got it to where the structure and the narrative thread was strong enough to say, ‘Okay, we have a movie here, and now we just have to bring a young writer in and put that modern spin on it.’ Enter Kenya Barris.”

On bringing some many of the original cast members back for Coming 2 America:
“We wanted to bring everybody back from the original. Where the story left off. It was like, ‘Okay, we have to bring back from where the story left off.’ How do you connect the dots? It was like, who would make the most sense? And how can we connect the dots the best? That’s how we picked who would be in the movie.”

You can read the rest of what he had to say under the jump. Coming 2 America will be available on Amazon Prime Video and in theaters today!

On opting to not play the Witch Doctor:
“Originally I was going to play the Witch Doctor and I was going to play Wesley’s character, General Izzi. But then I started thinking about how long it would be to do these makeups. Witch Doctor is going to take six hours to do. And Arsenio [Hall] was like, ‘Well, I’ll do it.’ I said, ‘Okay.'”

On originally wanting Dave Chappelle to play the Witch Doctor:
“Dave Chappelle played Cleveland and Arsenio and told Dave, ‘Yeah, we’re go and do a Coming 2 America.’ And Dave was like, ‘What? If you guys do Coming 2 America, I want to be in it.’ And, then it didn’t work out because schedule and all that stuff. But he was going to play the With Doctor. We thought he was for a sec.”

On the legacy of Coming to America:
“The original Coming to America, the very first one, is the first movie in the history of movies that had an all black cast that was successful all around the world. All around the world, the very first one ever. And there’s just a handful of movies that have had all black casts that have been successful all around the world. You could count them on one hand, and you’ll have fingers leftover. Coming to America it’s about family, love, doing the right thing, and tradition. That’s what the movie is about. It’s these amazing images of black Kings and Queens, and Princesses. Black Panther did it. The second movie that had black Kings and black queens. The very first one is Coming to America. And the third one is Coming 2 America.”

On Coming to America being a cult film:
” Questlove has a band called the Randy Watson Experience. People say s**t like “sexual chocolate”, that became a catchphrase. The mic drop The very first mic drop is Randy Watson. On Halloween, people get dressed up as characters from the movie. VH1 plays Coming to America 24 hours straight over Christmas. It’s a cult film.”

On when he knew he wanted Leslie Jones in the movie:
“From the third draft we were writing for Leslie. We’re like, ‘Leslie Jones has to play this.'”