Before that, he starred in 2012's A Thousand Words with a pre-Scandal madness Kerry Washington. Now, Murphy is set to make a dynamite return to the big screen - well, the streaming screen.
Deadline reports Murphy will star in a Netflix biopic about Rudy Ray Moore, a blaxploitation actor known for the popular Dolemite films. "If his profanity-laced comedy routines and no-budget movies appeared to be made strictly for ghetto audiences, he more recently became an icon of ironic urban hip to those nostalgic for black American culture before MTV", Rudy's obituary reads. And indeed, Dolemite, which has been dubbed the "Citizen Kane of kung-fu pimping movies" leaves a wide-lasting legacy on the blaxpoitation genre, which is seeing a sort of revival in satire and in genre films.
Moore worked in a Hollywood record store in 1970 when he began hearing outlandish and obscene stories of pimp and hustler named Dolemite. Moore would later use the stories to create the character Dolemite for a series of records that would fund his first film, 1975's Dolemite.
It's been a while since we've seen Eddie Murphy on our screens, especially since his most recent film, Mr. Church never made it over to United Kingdom cinemas. From then on out more films followed and Rudy became an underground act known for his unique work. He continues to be an influence for the likes of hip hop entrepreneur Snoop Dogg, and he had something of a comeback starring alongside the hip hop group Insane Clown Posse in Big Money Hustlas in 2000. Moore passed away in 2008.