Coming 2 America
Short description
Prince Akeem of Zamunda is in line to take the throne when he learns he has a son in America, a Queens native named Lavelle. With his father's wish that the young man be raised as the future crown prince, Akeem and his loyal aide Semmi return to New York, the place where Akeem once searched for a wife. The trip sets up a meeting between two very different worlds: the royal court of an African nation and the streetwise life of Lavelle's home neighborhood.
Eddie Murphy again plays Akeem and several other characters, with Arsenio Hall returning as Semmi and in further roles. Jermaine Fowler appears as Lavelle, Leslie Jones as Mary Junson, Tracy Morgan as Uncle Reem and KiKi Layne as Meeka. Craig Brewer directed, working from a screenplay by David Sheffield, Barry W. Blaustein and Kenya Barris. It followed Brewer's Dolemite Is My Name and was his fifth feature, after Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan, Footloose and that film.
Coming 2 America is a sequel to a comedy released decades earlier, with many of its original cast members returning. Made for a reported 60 million dollars, it received a mixed response: on IMDb it holds 5.3 out of 10 from around 81,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.3 from roughly 2,400 votes, while the critics' rating stands at 5.4 from 251 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- At the time of filming, James Earl Jones was 88 years old. He was in relatively good health for his age and was happy to star in the film, but only if it didn’t involve extensive travel. It is believed that all of his scenes were shot in a single day in a specially rented soundstage closer to his home, on the border of New York and Connecticut, in the absence of Eddie Murphy and the rest of the cast from Atlanta. This explains why Jones and Murphy do not have a single direct conversation in the film.
- Digital technology was used to recreate the images of young Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall in the flashback.
- Scenes allegedly for Zamunda were filmed near Atlanta, and the estate owned by hip-hop artist and music producer Rick Ross served as the royal palace. Ross liked the wallpaper used for filming in the dining room so much that he asked the filmmakers to leave it after filming was complete. A dining table for 60 people was specially constructed for the filming. It was also left as a gift to Ross after filming wrapped.
- According to Eddie Murphy, work on the sequel began after all attempts to adapt the first film into a theatrical production failed, and after a meeting with Ryan Coogler. Murphy said he didn't like the script ideas Coogler proposed and began thinking about writing the sequel's script himself.
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