It may only be a few days until the end of 2019, but we seem to have been transported back to the mid-1980s somehow. Not only is nostalgia for the decade all the rage, but we also have Eddie Murphy presenting Saturday Night Live and a Ghostbusters movie from the Reitman family on the way. All of these 1984-related coincidences could leave anybody feeling a little like Kyle Reese when he first appears in The Terminator.
As most people know, Eddie Murphy was originally penciled in to be one of the original Ghostbusters alongside Dan Aykroyd, John Candy and John Belushi, back when the four SNL castmates were ready to take the movie world by storm. Although reports vary about how close Murphy was to suiting up and fighting ghosts given Aykroyd’s patchy track record for recollection, in a recent interview the Dolemite Is My Name star revealed that there was a much more simple reason that he turned down the movie, and it was all due to a simple scheduling conflict.
“Yes, but I did Beverly Hills Cop. It wasn’t like I turned it down inasmuch as I wasn’t available, because I was doing this other movie. The only movie I ever turned down that was a big hit was that Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I was going to be the Bob Hoskins dude. And I was like ‘What? Animation and people? That sounds like bullsh*t to me. Now every time I see it, I feel like an idiot.”
While it’s interesting to hear that Eddie Murphy passed on Roger Rabbit, the story behind him turning down Ghostbusters isn’t as exciting as people were hoping for. It can’t be argued that he made the wrong choice though, as Beverly Hills Cop went on to become one of the most popular and successful movies of the decade.
Of course, both of the aforementioned 1984 releases spawned a franchise, earned hundreds of millions of dollars and had a profound impact on popular culture at the time. Plus, Eddie Murphy became the biggest movie star in the world without Ghostbusters, and trying to contain his manic energy in a supporting role would likely have hindered either him or the movie as a whole.