Eddie Murphy Joins ‘Grumpy Old Men’ Remake

Eddie Murphy is being recruited to star in a remake of 1993’s Grumpy Old Men directed by Tim Story, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Still no word on who will play opposite Murphy, but rumor has it, it might be Samuel L. Jackson. Story's directorial credits include Barbershop, the upcoming Shaft reboot, and the Ride Along movies. The remake apparently comes as Warner Bros. is trying to make more progressive versions of old films, since they realized projects like Ocean's 8 actually do make money. It's a weird motivation for sure, but who are we to turn down a comedy with Jackson and Murphy?

The 1993 comedy follows two neighbors and their lifelong feud that only gets worse when a woman moves in across the street. Murphy will star as one of the angry seniors, originally played by Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. That one and its '95 sequel Grumpier Old Men had nearly identical box office earnings, just north of $70 million.

While we wait on this new/old comedy, Murphy has stayed busy shooting a Netflix biopic about Rudy Ray Moore, a blaxploitation actor known for the popular Dolemite films. Titled Dolemite Is My Name, the movie also stars Wesley Snipes and possibly T.I. It's based off Moore’s creation of the character for a series of records that would fund his first film, 1975's Dolemite. Moore's work also inspired the cult classic 2009 blaxploitation spoof Black Dynamite, which starred Michael Jai White.

Grumpy and Dolemite are Murphy’s first films since 2016, when he had the leading role of Henry Church in Mr. Church. Before that, he'd been MIA since 2012's A Thousand Words.