Coming 2 America , the sequel to the classic Eddie Murphy movie, has been sold by Paramount Pictures to Amazon Studios for $125 million, Variety reported.
Not much has been revealed about the deal, but sources claim that the movie’s marketing agreements with Crown Royal and McDonald’s will move over to Amazon Studios as well.
Coming 2 America was expected to hit theaters on Christmas Day 2020, but with many cinemas still shut down, the production house decided to sell the rights to the movie. CBS All Access, Viacom’s streaming service, was reportedly in talks with Paramount before Amazon stepped in.
This isn’t the first film Paramount has sold to streaming platforms this year. Recently, the production house sold Trial of the Chicago 7 and Lovebirds to Netflix. Meanwhile, Amazon Studios has also bought the Borat sequel, Without Remorse starring Michael B. Jordan, as well as One Night in Miami directed by Regina King .
Coming 2 America , directed by Craig Brewer, is expected to hit Amazon’s streaming platform as early as December 18.
In the sequel, Prince Akeem prepares to become king when he finds out he has a long-lost son in New York City named Lavelle. As a result, Akeem and Semmi must return to America to groom Lavelle as the next prince of Zamunda.
Apart from Murphy, the upcoming film will include some of the original cast like Arsenio Hall, Shari Headly, James Earl Jones, and John Amos, as well as new additions such as Tracy Morgan and Leslie Jones. Coming to America , directed by John Landis, was released in 1988 and grossed close to $300 million worldwide.
As reported by The Inquisitr , the sequel was first announced in 2018, when Hall confirmed the highly anticipated film was “definitely happening” during an episode of CBS’s The Talk .
“Recently, I had lunch with Eddie Murphy and he had just sat down with Kenya Barris, who created black-ish and, for Tiffany Haddish and Queen Latifah, he wrote Girls Trip ,” he said. “He’s an amazing writer. He’s writing what’s going to be called Coming 2 America .”
Last year, Murphy also confirmed the news , revealing Brewer as the new director.
“After many years of anticipation, I’m thrilled that Coming to America 2 is officially moving forward,” he said . “We’ve assembled a great team that will be led by Craig Brewer, who just did an amazing job on Dolemite , and I’m looking forward to bringing all these classic and beloved characters back to the big screen.”