Eddie Murphy to finally make scripted TV debut with new Peacock drama
Eddie Murphy (‘Beverly Hills Cop’) is set to make his scripted television debut in the drama series ‘The Chairman,’ a Peacock project in development by Matthew Weiner (‘Mad Men’ creator). The role will mark Murphy’s first lead in a live-action scripted series. Weiner is writing the show and will also serve as an executive producer in addition to Murphy. Peacock has not yet greenlit the show and has not yet announced plot details. Universal Television, a division of Universal Studios Group, and 101 Studios are producing the series. 101 Studios is run by David Glasser (executive producer of ‘Yellowstone’) and has been under a first-look film and TV deal at NBCUniversal since January. The studio is also responsible for ‘Landman’ and ‘MobLand,’ and its NBCUniversal deal was finalized last year at the same time Taylor Sheridan moved his deal.
Murphy rose to fame on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ where he was a cast member for four seasons from 1980 to 1984. Fast forward more than four decades, and ‘The Chairman’ will be his first regular TV series role since he left the sketch show. Since leaving the show, Murphy has concentrated on comedy specials and movies. Interestingly, Murphy has starred in around 40 movies since ‘48 Hours.’ His film credits include ‘Harlem Nights,’ ‘Dreamgirls,’ ‘The Nutty Professor,’ ‘Coming 2 America,’ ‘You People,’ ‘Candy Cane Lane,’ and ‘The Pickup.’ He also created two shows in the 1990s, the animated comedy ‘The PJs’ for Fox and the sitcom ‘The Royal Family’ for CBS. His only scripted TV role before this was as a voice actor on ‘The PJs.’
Weiner ran ‘Mad Men’ for seven seasons on AMC from 2007 to 2015. He is a nine-time Emmy Award-winning writer who also wrote for and executive produced HBO’s ‘The Sopranos.’ Weiner has not had a series picked up since ‘The Romanoffs’ for Amazon in 2018.
