Eddie Murphy is heading back to the movie screen.
Deadline reports Murphy will star in a Netflix biopic about Rudy Ray Moore, a blaxploitation actor known for the popular Dolemite films. Craig Brewer, who wrote Hustle & Flow, will direct the film while Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski will pen the script. As Deadline notes, Alexander and Karaszewski are known for their work on "quirky biographical movies" like Big Eyes, Ed Wood, and The People Vs. Larry Flynt.
And Moore's story is definitely "quirky." He was reportedly working as a record store employee during the '70s when he heard stories about the real-life pimp and hustler, 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. Moore's Dolemite films also inspired the cult classic 2009 blaxploitation spoof, Black Dynamite, which starred Michael Jai White. (The scene where the red boom mic appears above Black Dynamite's head is pretty much identical to one in Dolemite, except the latter low budget film did it by accident.)
This will be the first role Murphy tackles since 2016 when he had the leading role of Henry Church in Mr. Church. Before that, he starred in 2012's A Thousand Words with a pre-Scandal madness Kerry Washington.
Although many are still disappointed the live-action adaptation of Mulan won't feature Murphy's epic rendition of the talking dragon Mushu, it seems there's plenty on the table for Murphy in the future. He's slated to appear in Triplets, a comedy film with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito. He'll also return as the famed leading cop, Alex Foley, for Beverly Hills Cop 4.
