Eddie Murphy, whose unforgettable tenure on Saturday Night Live helped launch his legendary career on stage and screen, will soon be the subject of a new documentary from director Angus Wall. The project, titled The Last Stand, will document Murphy's return to the stand-up comedy stage. Producing the film are John Davis and John Fox, the duo who partnered with Murphy for several films, including Doctor Doolittle, Dr. Doolittle 2, Daddy Day Care, Norbit, and Dolemite is My Name.
The pair of producers recently spoke with the fine folks at Collider and were more than happy to express their excitement about teaming with Murphy for such a momentous presentation,
"The thing that John and I are really excited about is, we are shooting a documentary right now about Eddie Murphy. We're doing it with Angus Wall, Academy Award-winning editor, great documentarian. We've made five movies with Eddie and we love and adore him. I love it. I love him as a person. I love him as a performer. We love and adore him, and we're doing his last stand-up with him. It's going to be the last time he does stand-up. It's going to be called The Last Stand. And we've been working on that for two and a half years.
There's already been hours and hours and hours and hours of footage shot with him talking about his early days in the business, his perception of comedy, people who influenced him, understanding what the life of a stand-up is, what makes him different from other stand-ups. It's really cool, interesting stuff," said Davis. "To be able to be that close to comic genius is really one of the great benefits of being in this business for me, personally."
For now, Davis is unsure as to how The Last Stand will arrive on screens. He says it will either become a two-hour film or a multi-part series, depending on how things shake out. Davis also revealed that Wall has gotten "unrestricted access" to Murphy and that he's captured "hundreds of hours" of footage so far.
Murphy announced his plans to return to the comedy stage back in 2019. Obviously, mounting a comeback of this magnitude requires time and careful planning. Thus, Murphy made sure not to rush his stand-up revival. Then came the Covid-19 pandemic, a worldwide event that put damn near everything on hold for an undetermined amount of time. However, now that vaccinations are happening en masse, and theaters are opening their doors, it's finally time for Murphy to chart a course for the comedy stage.
For more details about The Last Stand, be sure to check out Collider's full interview with John Davis and John Fox.