After 30 Years, Eddie Murphy Confirms Coming to America Sequel

From the “Does anyone really want this?” file comes today’s unexpected bit of film news: After 30 years, Eddie Murphy has confirmed the existence of the long-rumored sequel to 1988’s Coming to America. The film would be directed by Craig Brewer, who just worked with Murphy in Netflix’s upcoming Rudy Ray Moore biopic, Dolemite Is My Name. Presumably that film went pretty well, considering that Murphy is eager to immediately work with Brewer again, and resurrect one of his most beloved roles in the process.

The original Coming to America was directed by John Landis (The Blues Brothers) and was a massive success at the box office. Starring Eddie Murphy as the well-intentioned Akeem, a naive and fabulously wealthy African prince who moves to America to find the woman of his dreams, it was a hilarious send-up of ’80s pop culture and American societal conventions. The sequel, with a script from Kenya Barris and original Coming to America writers Barry Blaustein and David Sheffield, would reportedly see the return of all the original film’s key characters. According to Deadline:

In the sequel, Akeem learns about a long lost son, and must return to America to meet his unlikely heir to the throne of Zamunda. The intention is to bring back the original cast which includes Arsenio Hall, who played the prince’s aide Semmi; Shari Headley, who was courted by the prince when he went undercover as a fast food worker; John Amos, who played her father; and James Earl Jones, who played the king.