Eddie Murphy, Netflix close to $70M deal for standup comeback: report

Yup. They keep jacking up the rates, and overpaying people for comedy specials.

 

Sometimes I think that Murphy's gay jokes helped to bring gays into mainstream society. But the rest of the time it just feels like he set the movement back several years.

 

'Delirious' is still very good.

 

He's funny on the newest Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, with Seinfeld.

 

His older material has aged atrociously. Regardless, I'm excited to see a comedy legend return to standup.

 

He's still very funny, check out his duet show with Martin Short.

 

The Martin Short Comedians In Cars is real funny also.
Love the ad lib when the waitress grabs the flowers while she is clearing the table.

 

Well, I'll watch in the hopes Eddie does a nice modern skewing of Bill Cosby. He was well before the pack in identify that guy as a self-righteous jerk (and much worse as we now know). I does seem like too much to pay, but it's Netflix' money to burn so more power to Eddie for making a killer deal.

 

Yeah I know what you mean, but I'm really hoping he hits it out the park. I miss funny Eddy Murphy.

 

Edited most of your post but you make valid discussion points. In particular to (b) I think a lot depends on someones definition of inappropriate vs what is offensive.

I recon there's quite a lot of people who would say Ricky Gervais got pretty close to that at times as did, say, Louis CK (pre-masturbation in front of women information) or say Bill Burr. I think you can be "inappropriate" but avoid being offensive.

 

Well now I've heard it all - Eddie Murphy, in his prime, "wasn't that funny"....

I have no idea if he can put together a funny routine after so many years out of the game, but I sure hope he can. He was once one of the funniest ever.

 

It's been decades since I listened to his albums and perhaps my memory is foggy, but I do not recall the Mr. T and Ralph Kramden bits as being in any way relevant to AIDS. They were just juvenile sex jokes. Believe me, I am 100% in solidarity with the rights of gay people to live, work and participate in society openly and with zero discrimation. However, if we can make crude jokes about heterosexual sex acts, then why not the same for gays? Why are straights and gays different in that regard? We are all simply humans, and I don't see crude sex jokes as being straight or gay, they're only jokes about being human.

 

I don’t like jokes about either. Both pander to the lowest common denominator of our society; which, by the way, of you haven’t noticed, we need less of this crap being spewed about.

 

At one time you couldn't show a toilet or use the word "pregnant" on television because it offended the easily offendable. Like it or not, we aren't going back to Pleasantville.

 

It's still the gold standard for a standup special IMHO. Raw, by contrast, was kinda weak - and it doesn't even look good.

 

What's next? Giving Andrew Dice Clay $100 Million?

 

Don't have much of an opinion on Murphy. I like stand up comedy but never seem to watch much of it. I guess I find TV shows, movies, books, and music more interesting. This may get me to pull up some of his videos though.

I do wonder what kind of math went into arriving at $70,000,000. On the surface it seems crazy and you'd expect it to be a bad deal. Could they be looking at it like this?:

Assume 1% of households subscribe. In North America that could be 87,500,000 households (population of the U.S. and Canada divided by 4 - assuming the avg household is 4 ppl).

87,500,000 x 1% =875,000
875,000 x $12 =$10, 500,000

If the avg length of staying subscibed is 7 months, they would make money.

I'm sure the approach isn't just this one show, rather it's to create as much compelling content as possible, and EM is just one part of that. This is what would keep people subscribing and not leaving. So possibly even if they take a loss on Murphy it may be with a greater goal in mind.

Yup, going to be tough on them. I think they are doing what they have to do and they are doing it proactively. It may completely fail though. One thing I am sure of is that I will be quite pleased not having to scroll through movies from the companies that you have mentioned.

 

good for him! hope he does well...I'll be watching. : )

 

yeah he was so effortlessly funny around delirious, its crazy how big he was at his peak, snl to trading places/48 hours/beverly hills cop, a sensation that everyone loved..i haven't seen either of the stand ups since they came out but I remember raw being more eddie on his star trip with the leather pants lol, funny but a step down, I think the wheels came off around Harlem Nights (for me) but man.....he was good. ill check this out

 

I liked Eddie Murphy's jokes about the Jacksons... He was great on SNL. Humor for Everyone...

The King for me will always be Richard Pryor though.

 

Eddie Murphy was awesome on SNL. His first 3-4 movies were great...all classics
Never saw all of Delirious. Saw Raw in the theater and thought it was hilarious. Made $100 million in movie theaters. Saw it 2 years ago and didn't laugh once.
And Eddie hasn't had a funny movie since Nutty Professor.
He owes me nothing. One of the all time greats who basically retired long ago.

 

If I'm reading your numbers right, doesn't this assume that every subscribing household will watch the Eddie Murphy content? That seems overly generous.

The part I've bolded is where I think you make a solid point - and one I've overlooked. I also agree that they have to make moves like this to keep going. I would think they could make some of these moves in a way more cost-effective way?

 

I don't think Netflix cares if people watch as much as they care that people subscribe and pay their $12 per month (or whatever the rate currently is - I just assumed its about $12 now) and continue to do that over time. Of course people need to want to watch the content if they are to continue wanting to pay their monthly fee.

With my numbers I am assuming that Eddie Murphy results in a 1% rate of market capture and those people will stay as subscibers for 7 months or more. Now that I think about it, probably 8 months since the first month is free.

I'm sure my numbers are off. I haven't looked at Netflix's financial statements or anything. But it might illustrate how this massive cost could be something that they can successfully chip away at.