MovieChat Forums > The Golden Child (1986) Discussion > Is this why Eddie Murphy later disowned ...

Is this why Eddie Murphy later disowned The Golden Child

posted 5 years ago by TMC-4 (20273)
8 replies | jump to latest

He has gone on record with saying that he thought that The Golden Child was in his words "a piece of shit":
https://youtu.be/UQ5b5w-ovXc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Child

"My pictures make their money back," Murphy remarked in 1989. "No matter how I feel, for instance, about The Golden Child – which was a piece of shit – the movie made more than $100 million. So who am I to say it sucks?"[8] After Golden Child, Murphy would participate in the writing of many of his films going forward.

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/6nntit/i_just_finished_the_golden_child_1986_its_one_of/

https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/the-golden-child-is-1-of-the-most-awesome-terrible-movi-1821469891

Now according to IMDb:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091129/trivia?ref_=tt_ql_trv_1

In interview for Fangoria #113 Charles Dance said how movie was drastically changed by Paramount after the first test screening;

"Initially, The Golden Child was a very interesting script with lot of resonances, but Paramount basically chickened out. When they first screened it, it was a very different sort of film for Eddie Murphy. Paramount took too much notice of the preview audience's unease about the unfamiliarity of Eddie's character. They had gotten to know him so well through Beverly Hills Cop that they wanted the character to be much more like that. So the studio went back and reshot a lot of footage of Eddie doing "Eddie Murphy-isms", and put them into the picture. Then they took out a really sumptuous, weird and beautiful score by John Williams, and replaced it with something more funky. So basically what you got was Beverly Hills Cop in Tibet."

Eddie Murphy trashed this movie while promoting Coming to America (1988), saying the original script was far better than the finished product (indeed, the novelization is closer to what was intended).

[–] Redsfan001 (6177) 5 years ago

Murphy had a string of hits prior..(Best Defense was not really his movie)...this movie proved to be that he was human and was his first real flop.

I was a teen at the time Golden Child came out and remember the buzz that this was different type, not as fun as his other movies.

Like a star pitcher loosing a game at the playoffs (if I threw this pitch replaced by if the script did this...) it is no suprise the way Murphy regards it.

I still have not seen the movie in it's entirety.

[–] TMC-4 (20273) 4 years ago

I recently read that the script that Eddie Murphy initially read was really good and much of it didn't make the final product. The Golden Child now that I thought about, strikes me as if the studio wanted Murphy to do what he did with Beverly Hills Cop. That is that he'll somehow be able to make it work, by ab-libbing much of the material.

[–] DeeRagon (45) 4 years ago

I remember back in the 80s Murphy said in an interview his next door neighbor wrote the script.

[–] moviechatterer (15955) 4 years ago

its not that bad, as the reples on that reddit link say

[–] rateater (10136) 4 years ago

it's great, he should be proud, and there's still time for a sequel

[–] AP (5291) 4 years ago

I had no idea John Williams wrote a score for this movie. What were they thinking by removing it?

[–] thingmakersback (1400) 4 years ago

They did not. It was actually John Barry and a bit of it remains in the film. There is an album out with both scores in full and the Barry stuff is not my favorite Barry... But it does sound like elements of some of his Bond films.

[–] Drooch (5333) 4 years ago

Is there a breakdown somewhere of the differences between the original script, the first cut, and the finished film?