“Coming 2 America” is skipping theaters and headed to Amazon. This truly is the end of theatrical, or at least the way and shape it used to be before the pandemic hit.
According to Variety, Amazon is negotiating the final details with Paramount to acquire “Coming 2 America” for a Prime Video release in December. The deal, when everything is said and done, is reported to cost the Jeff Bezos-owned streaming company $125 million and would likely include the transfer of marketing tie-in deals with McDonalds and whiskey brand, Crown Royal.
This is yet another painful blow to theater owners around the world who were relying on the fall movie slate to stage a semi-comeback of sorts, but the business is all but dead at this point with, no doubt, many theater chains set to declare bankruptcy in the coming weeks and months.
Eddie Murphy will be back in the role of Akeem, the privileged African prince who settled into Queens to look for an American wife in the 1987 original. Craig Brewer, who just directed Murphy in the hilarious and heartfelt "Dolemite Is My Name,” a biopic on the actor who played the famous cinematic blaxploitation character in the 1970s, is at the helm for this sequel. That collaboration seems to have mostly started with Murphy vouching for Brewer to get on board this sequel.
Kenya Barris rewrote the script by original “Coming to America” writers Barry Blaustein and David Sheffield. Deadline has this plot synopsis: “Akeem learns about a long lost son, and must return to America to meet his unlikely heir to the throne of Zamunda.”
If the deal finalizes, “Coming 2 America” should be available via Amazon Prime Video on December 18.