What happened
Eddie Murphy’s latest comedy Meet Dave, which cost $60 million to make, took in just $5.3 million at the box office over its opening weekend and came in at seventh place. (Reuters)
What the commentators said
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Latest Videos FromThe Week
After Dave’s “brutal” box office opening, said Dan Kois and Lane Brown New York magazine’s Vulture blog, “what remains for the career of Eddie Murphy?” Even though some reviewers “charitably” called Murphy’s latest the best of his worst, still hardly anyone went to see it. “It’s time to hang it up, Eddie—take those retirement rumors and make ’em real.”
Dave’s take at the box office was certainly “disappointing,” said the blog The Celebrity Truth. But believe it or not, it’s only Murphy’s “second-worst” opening. His “worst ever movie debut was his 2002 movie The Adventures of Pluto Nash, which made just $2.2 million.”
“What’s funny is that people are complaining that there aren’t any mainstream black romances on the big screen,” said Wilson Morales in BlackVoices.com’s blog It’s All Reel, yet when Eddie Murphy finally stars in one, nobody goes to see it. But maybe “it’s time” for Murphy “to do more serious films like Dreamgirls.”
“Murphy hasn’t completely lost whatever made him funny in the first place,” said Stephanie Zacharek in Salon, and “Meet Dave is so gentle and inoffensive that it may act as a salve for audiences who’ve been disappointed” by him “in recent years.” Murphy’s “timing is still sharp,” and his physical comedy is “still fun to watch.”
