“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.
Amazon acquired “Coming 2 America” from, for a Prime Video release, in early fall. The deal, when everything was 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 McDonald’s 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 of theater-going is all but dead as you know, with 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.
The just-released trailer leans on nostalgia, as we see the same band of characters as the first film, including Murphy playing numerous roles in disguise. The idea of a sequel to the very funny original comes at a risk, repetition could seep in, so could dullness, but Brewer is a solid filmmaker with a keen visual eye, I’ll be looking forward to what he comes up with here.
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.”
“Coming 2 America” will be available via Amazon Prime Video on March 5th, 2021.