Why Paramount Got Cold Feet About Adding Eddie Murphy To The Star Trek Franchise

/Film has written about the near-miss Eddie Murphy had with "Star Trek" in the past. The story goes that an early draft of the script of Leonard Nimoy's "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" featured a comedic astrophysicist character that was written specifically with Eddie Murphy in mind. "Star Trek IV," remember, is a time travel story about the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise going back in time to the year 1986 to rescue some whales that are, in the Enterprise crew's time, extinct. Murphy was to play a 20th century kook who is obsessed with aliens. 

At the time, this seemed like a wise choice, as Murphy was one of the hottest movie stars in the world. He would also bring a modern sensibility to the ordinarily timeless world of "Star Trek." When Murphy was still attached, however, the script for "Star Trek IV" was perhaps a hair too wacky. There was a scene wherein a cat got a hold of a phaser and started vaporizing Murphy's furniture. Murphy didn't like the script after all, and passed on "Star Trek" in favor of 1986's "The Golden Child." 

There was a time, though, when Paramount was very excited about the prospect of having Eddie Murphy involved in their "Star Trek" movie. Murphy was a Trekkie going way back, and he, too, was excited. Somewhere along the way, though, Paramount got cold feet, and started to have some doubts, even before Murphy rejected the script. 

One of the Murphy-script screenwriters, Steve Meerson, recalled Murphy's near-miss with "Star Trek" in a recent interview with Women's World, and he explained the moment when the studio started to sound a little fearful about his involvement.

Steve Meerson spoke of Eddie Murphy as if he were a brand unto himself — which, of course, many movie stars kind of are. Eddie Murphy brings his unique persona to any and all of his film projects, and Meerson noted Paramount's trepidation about bringing Murphy's wild, sometimes crass comedic persona into the formal "Star Trek" universe. He said: 

"Later, the studio started getting very anxious and for very good reason. [...] Here you have a franchise called 'Star Trek' and it performs in a certain wonderful way. Here, you have a franchise called Eddie Murphy, and it performs in an even bigger way. Why not take them together and form one franchise? Well, bad economics, because you are probably diminishing by compositing." 

It's a good point. Not all crossovers work, especially if they're not executed well. The only reason Murphy's involvement persisted is because Murphy was such a massive star and Paramount, although hesitant, didn't want to drop Murphy from the project immediately. Meerson added: 

"[T]he studio was resistant to it, but Eddie had a certain amount of clout, and he said that he hadn't decided whether he wanted to do it or not. And so much of the development of the story was with the very distinct possibility that Eddie Murphy was in it."

A lot of the early development of "Star Trek IV" was done with Murphy in mind. Of course, all films of a certain budget undergo large amounts of tinkering during pre-production, and Murphy's character ultimately mutated into someone else. Indeed, Murphy's character ended up morphing into Dr. Jillian Taylor, the cetologist played by Catherine Hicks. Hicks was great, and stood up to her co-star William Shatner.

Peter Krikes, the other co-screenwriter of the Eddie Murphy version of "Star Trek IV," related a few details of the script he and Steve Meerson wrote. It seems Murphy's intended character was, in addition to being obsessed with aliens, also very big on whales, tying him to the movie's "save the whales" plot. Indeed, Murphy's character was meant to be the one human the Enterprise crew was initially searching for when they traveled back in time to 1986. As Krikes noted: 

"[Murphy] would play whale songs, and it was the whale songs he played in the classroom that the ship locked on to. That was in the first draft we wrote, but the second draft was different. After you write the first draft of anything, once the director, the cast, and the producers come aboard, everything changes, and not necessarily for the better. But the tone was pretty much a reflection of what was in the movie." 

In the Meerson/Krikes script, the Catherine Hicks character was involved, but as a reporter who knew the Murphy character. Eventually those two characters merged into the cetologist seen in the final film. Krikes added:

"[T]here was a scene where the Eddie Murphy character was trying to convince the Catherine Hicks character that aliens do exist on Earth. In the first draft, Hicks was a newswoman and there was a marine biologist as well. Gillian Taylor was ultimately a marriage of about three characters. Murphy believed in aliens and saw them beam into his classroom."

The final version of "Star Trek IV" was a massive hit without Murphy, so maybe it was all for the best.