Arsenio Hall Tells Court Film Wasn’t Buchwald’s Idea

Television talk show host Arsenio Hall testified Monday that he and comedian Eddie Murphy, not humorist Art Buchwald, conceived the idea for the movie “Coming to America” in 1987, four years after Buchwald’s original story idea was optioned by Paramount Pictures.

In a $5-million breach-of-contract suit against the film studio, Buchwald alleges that he, not Murphy, came up with the story concept--which the humorist entitled “King for a Day”--that evolved into the comedy film that grossed $300 million.

Portraying Murphy as a generous, sensitive and talented person, Hall maintained that Murphy--Paramount’s No. 1 box office attraction--approached him in 1987 to take the role of his sidekick in “The Quest,” which eventually became “Coming to America.”

The movie was to be a “black fairy tale” with several different character roles that both he and Murphy could portray. Hall--who hosts a syndicated talk show, broadcast locally on Channel 13--testified in the third day of trial in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Hall maintained that he knew nothing about Buchwald’s story, which Paramount optioned in 1983 for producer Alain Bernheim to develop into an Eddie Murphy comedy. After three scripts, and about $500,000 in development expenses, Paramount dropped its option with Buchwald and Bernheim in 1985.

Hall described a process whereby he and Murphy acted out scenes and ideas and recited them into tape recorders. They later gave the tapes to two former “Saturday Night Live” staff writers who had worked with Murphy and molded it all into the script for “Coming to America.”

The witness cited Murphy’s granting of screenwriting credit to the two writers as a sign of Murphy’s generosity.

When Buchwald’s attorney suggested that Murphy--who took sole screen credit for “creating” the story for “Coming to America”--might have an ego problem, Hall recounted how a recent film entitled “I’m Gonna Get You, Sucka” came from an Eddie Murphy idea for which Murphy never sought credit.

“Nobody will ever know that it came from Eddie’s idea,” Hall said. “He’s a very generous man.”

The switch from Murphy’s usual tough, foul-mouthed cop or con artist character--popularized in such films as “Beverly Hills Cop” and “48 Hours”--to the kindly Prince Akeem of “Coming to America” was intentionally developed, Hall said.

“We did a face lift on his character,” the witness said. “He was not the wisecracking Axel Foley character from ‘Beverly Hills Cop,’ ” Hall said. “This showed him soft, sensitive, non-materialistic. He was a gentleman. In this movie, he was the perfect man. Any woman would love him.”

Following Hall to the stand, Paramount Pictures Corp. chairman Frank Mancuso steadfastly maintained during two hours of questioning that he was only “generally” aware that Bernheim was developing a script from Buchwald’s treatment. He said he did not remember that it was being developed as a script for Murphy, despite a series of Paramount inter-office memos filed as exhibits in the case that show that it was so planned.

In an uncomfortable moment for Mancuso, Buchwald’s attorney, Pierce O’Donnell, pointed out that Paramount has renegotiated Murphy’s contract four times, substantially boosting what the studio must pay the star each time.

In an October interview with Murphy in Rolling Stone magazine, the actor was quoted as saying that he was not happy with his current five-picture contract with the studio. O’Donnell asked that the interview be made an exhibit.

Currently, Murphy earns $8 million a movie and 15% of the film’s gross receipts. According to testimony, his seven Paramount releases have earned $883 million.

Asked if the studio is renegotiating Murphy’s contract again, Mancuso likened the star to a good ballplayer who is a big drawing card. He added in a barely audible voice: “We are always in negotiations with Eddie.”

Off the witness stand, Hall issued wisecracks, signed autographs for lawyers and posed for pictures with bailiffs.

Outside court, the talk show host characterized Buchwald’s assertion that Murphy might have stolen the columnist’s idea as insulting and “absurd.”

During his own turn on the stand Monday, the 64-year-old syndicated columnist said the genesis for his eight-page film treatment sprang from decades of various ideas that came to him as a columnist/writer.