Coming to America's Box Office Triumph

0:00It's March 27. Welcome to Entertainment and Celebrity News today, powered by AI. I'm Cory with the Story. Coming to America, the 1988 comedy hit starring Eddie Murphy and Arseneo Hall nearly missed the big screen altogether. Paramount Pictures turned it down at first, despite it going on to earn $288 million worldwide and becoming the studios. Top film that year. Arseneo Hall recently shared on a podcast how they pitched the idea, but executives passed, saying they had seen similar stories too many times. At the time, Murphy had just left Saturday Night Live after four seasons to chase movies, and some fell fans still wanted his wild character work from, the show. So Murphy and Hall reworked the script, adding the famous barbershop scenes where both actors played multiple roles. Murphy handled the prints, the shop owner, and a customer, while Hall took on the aid, a barber, a reverend, and more. The movie dropped in June of 1988 and crushed at the box office, proving everyone wrong.

1:04Paramount later greenlit a sequel, coming to America originally set for August 2020. Pandemic delays pushed it to Amazon Studios for streaming in 2021, keeping the laughs alive for a new crowd.