I thought this project was dead.
Eddie Murphy is apparently still planning on putting a French accent to play Inspector Clouseau in a new ‘Pink Panther’ movie for Amazon/MGM.
In an interview with Al Roker, Murphy casually dropped the news as. “I’m Inspector Clouseau in the next Pink Panther,” he said, sandwiched between mentions of a Bill Condon-directed George Clinton biopic and Shrek 5.
Al Roker, speaking for all of us, responded with the kind of confused disbelief usually reserved for Oscar nominations of random Netflix originals: “Wait, what?”
Murphy doubled down: “Yeah, I’m the new Clouseau.” Then, with a smirk, he teased that the famously French inspector might, well, not be that French this time. “Maybe… he could also be Haitian. I will tell you, he’s Black. He’s Black, for sure.”
Remember Steve Martin’s painfully unfunny reboot in 2006 and its equally atrocious 2009 sequel? And yet, like some studio-mandated zombie, Clouseau rises once more—this time with Murphy. There’s no equal to Peter Sellers, especially “A Shot in the Dark” and “The Pink Panther Strikes Again.”
The real twist is that Murphy has been quietly circling the role for years. It’s a passion project of his that’s been in limbo since the Bush administration. He was even supposed to star instead of Martin in a 2000s reboot, but later dropped out, and the project then got reshuffled.
“Sonic the Hedgehog” filmmaker Jeff Fowler is attached to direct Murphy’s ‘Pink Panther” movie. What could possibly go wrong?