If you ask me Eddie Murphy is a shadow of his former self. At one point, he was a comedy superstar, voice of the people, equipped with hard, biting, adult comedy that marked him as the successor to Richard Pryor. His two comedy specials (Delirious & Raw) set records for the number of times “shit” and “fuck” were used. His SNL sketches helped put a face on urban poverty and modern discrimination with humor and wit. Now? He’s a talking mule carrying the coattails of Mike Myers.
The thing that really gets me is how defensive he gets when asked about it in interviews. He’s so cocksure that he can’t even admit that as a lead, he’s a moratorium. Sure, he’s still a bankable star in Dr. Doolittle and Shrek, but the truth is that little kids will see anything and they don’t know how to download movies illegally, so those box office numbers are inflated if you ask me. He was forced to reinvent himself in children’s entertainment. In any role that he is required to be the main star AND serve content for audiences between 15 and 35, he has failed horribly.

Maintaining excellence is very hard to do in any entertainment industry. That is why the Rolling Stones or Aerosmith are so impressive, 30+ years of being relevant. At some point you stop being cool, stop being funny, and lose touch with the pulse of contemporary culture. Most stars go through a hot streak where everything they touch turns to gold – Eddie Murphy, Bill Murray in the 80s, Jim Carrey in the 90s, and now Will Ferrell and the Frat Pack.

Its my goal then to find out what happened to Eddie by analyzing his movies and comparing is career to other comedians, both those that fell into the same trap and those that resisted. I’ve compiled the following data into the graph below for his non-children targeted movies.

WARNING: Boring stat stuff to follow. I measured 1) the ROI of profit in the U.S. market against production budget combined (red) and 2) the Rotten Tomatoes community movie score (blue).

A couple of notes. First, there is no production budget information for the Distinguished Gentleman anywhere to be found, so I didn’t include it. It probably faired similarly to Boomerang in ROI. Second, I clipped the chart because 48 Hrs scored a 75+ on its ROI, which changed the scale of the graph so that the other nuances couldn’t be seen as clearly.

The drop off surprisingly started immediately after Beverly Hills Cop and culminated in official career meltdown at Boomerang, which was the first movie to lose money at the US box office. I’ve done a little research into what was happening in the background. Eddie’s pet project was Harlem Nights in which he starred, directed, produced, wrote, and hand picked the cast. I believe he was even a set designer. It was heavily panned by the critics and was his lowest rated and ROI performance to date.

Apparently, Eddie took this personally and went into seclusion from the press, settled down with his long time baby’s momma, and didn’t make another movie for two years. When he did, Another 48 Hrs, he was borish, overweight, and depressed. Keenan Ivory Wayans famously said that they should have called the movie Another 48 Pounds.

This started the downward trend of movies either breaking even or losing money. In fact, out of all of the movies on this chart, 42% have lost money. The Adventures of Pluto Nash cost $110 million to make and drew a whopping $4 million. Wow.

So what happened?

One of the studio execs after the fallout of Harlem Nights, said that Eddie was suffering from the Elvis Presley syndrome. He was surrounded by Yes-Men. He became stagnant. Remember when Dave Chapelle flipped out and left the big money at Comedy Central? Here’s his quote on why he just suddenly left and you’ll see a parallel as to what happened to Eddie:

“If you don’t have the right people around you and you’re moving at a million miles an hour you can lose yourself. Everyone around me says, ‘You’re a genius!’; ‘You’re great!’; ‘That’s your voice!’ But I’m not sure that they’re right. You got to be careful of the company you keep. It’s hard to know how much to say. One of the things that happens when people make the leap from a certain amount of money to tens of millions of dollars is that the people around you dramatically change.”

In a way, Eddie began thinking of himself in third person, as a brand. He lost his edge. Part of this was the Elvis Syndrome, but I believe that the other part, a big part, was that he stopped doing stand-up. His last comedy album was released in 1983 and his last stand-up comedy movie (Raw) was in 1987. He has also never returned to SNL after he left in 1984, where he enjoyed great success and really got his start.

That was one of the big things that Jerry Seinfeld kept in mind. He could have easily gone straight into movies during and after Seinfeld, but he was committed to staying in front of an audience, performing with immediate results. There is no greater sense of truth when performing – you’re either funny or not. There are no Yes-Men out there doing the laughing for you. Once Eddie stopped performing, he stopped being funny.

I believe that this is the big part of what happens to most successful comedians. First, the unique part of them that is funny becomes routine and played out. Second, they become a brand rather than a comedian. And third, they stop listening to the people, losing the pulse.

The bad news is that Eddie is planning Beverly Hills Cop IV, which will inevitably bomb.

The good news? He has talked about retiring from movies shortly thereafter to return to stand-up.

Let’s hope so.