The movie Eddie Murphy has always wanted to make: “One thing I’ve been threatening to do for years”

Widely acknowledged as one of the greatest stand-up comedians ever, Eddie Murphy synthesised his incendiary act into a career as one of Hollywood’s biggest comedy stars.

Over the years, though, he has seen more ups and downs than a rollercoaster, from banking enormous hits like Beverly Hills Cop and The Nutty Professor to suffering abysmal failures like Norbit, all while receiving an Academy Award nomination for Dreamgirls and then walking away from movies for much of the 2010s. He has returned to Hollywood in a big way in recent years, though, and seems closer than ever to finally making his dream project, which he fears could be perceived as self-indulgent.

In 2024, Murphy sat down with The New York Times to discuss Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, the much-anticipated fourth instalment of his most beloved franchise. Attempts to develop a fourth film went as far back as 1996, and Murphy lamented that ten different scripts and ten different producers fell by the wayside over the years. It was only when original producer Jerry Bruckheimer became involved again that the film gained some traction and finally became a reality on Netflix.

In truth, the development hell that Beverly Hills Cops 4 suffered through for nearly 30 years contributed to Murphy falling out of love with the logistics of moviemaking. In 2020, he admitted to Vanity Fair he had become “so burnt out on the process of making a movie that if I was a little boy, I would start crying.”

Four years later, he told the Times, “I never had joy” making films, but the problem wasn’t when cameras were rolling. He mused, “The actual being in a scene, that’s a small part of the day. I love that — when we’re on the set and you feel it clicking. But ‘hurry up and wait’: that’s the movie business, and it is not fun.”

Sadly, this dissatisfaction with the endless red tape of moviemaking may have put Murphy off pulling the trigger on his dream project. He revealed that he’d been toying with the idea of making a mockumentary called Soul, Soul, Soul for many years, but had always gotten cold feet before committing to it fully.

“I’m telling you, I almost made this movie a bunch of times,” confessed Murphy. “I’ve been right to where I was going to make it and then said, ‘No, not right now,’ because I feel like it’s so self-indulgent, and only a few people would go see it — but they would laugh so hard.”

What exactly is Soul, Soul, Soul, though, and why does Murphy worry audiences would consider it self-indulgent? Well, Murphy imagines it as a faux documentary about a musician named Murray Murray, who was closely tied to the boom of R&B and rock n’ roll in the ’60s. He will have worked with all the biggest names in the music business and been part of countless great moments in music history. Naturally, though, because this is a Murphy vehicle, Murray’s take on these industry greats will be hilarious, and the events he describes will be absurd.

Murphy went so far as to put together a trailer for the film to give people an idea of his thinking, and he showed it to Mr & Mrs Smith star Donald Glover. He said Glover exclaimed, “Yo, you got to make this movie. How do we make this movie?”

To give a taste of the humour in Soul, Soul, Soul, the trailer included Murray Murray claiming he coined the phrase “I have a dream” long before Martin Luther King Jr Murray alleges that he wanted to use the seminal phrase as an album title but King loved how the words flowed together so much that he turned it into a speech that changed the world.

As for if and when the world will see Soul, Soul, Soul, Murphy was still hedging his bets. He admitted, “It’s so much work. That’s been the deterrent”, but added, “I tell you, one day, I’ll do it.”

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