Eddie Murphy was once one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, but a string of poor decisions saw the actor’s relevance fade drastically over the years.
If you saw his name attached to a project then the chances were that it would either be a painfully unfunny comedy where he played multiple characters, or a saccharine family movie. In fact, it wouldn’t be unfair to say that his voice role in the Shrek franchise might have been the only thing preventing him from fading into total obscurity.
However, a late-career comeback looks like it might be happening, following rave reviews for his Golden Globe-nominated performance in Dolemite Is My Name, and upcoming sequel Coming 2 America that brings back one of his most popular creations and looks to tap into the nostalgia market.
Eddie Murphy has a long way to go to come anywhere close to recapturing his status as one of the industry’s most popular and bankable leading men, but for some reason one of the worst movies of his entire career has turned out to be an unexpected hit on Netflix, with A Thousand Words finding itself a spot on both the Top 10 overall list and the Top 10 movies list lately. It’s been moving around in various spots over the past few days but currently, it’s at #8 on the overall chart and #4 on the movies chart.
The dramatic comedy sat on the shelf for four years before eventually being released in 2012, where it subsequently bombed at the box office after earning back little over half of the $40 million budget. A Thousand Words also suffered from the ignominy of a rare 0% Rotten Tomatoes score, with not a single one of the 57 reviews having anything positive to say about it.
That being said, based on the list of titles that have been troubling Netflix’s Top 10 in recent months, it appears to be pretty obvious that the critical consensus has no impact whatsoever on people’s desire to watch a movie.
