Coming 2 America, the sequel to the 1988 comedy starring Eddie Murphy, is not coming to theaters. Instead, the film will debut on Amazon Prime, as studio Paramount has sold the film to the online streaming service.
The film had been set for a December 18 theatrical release, which looks to be the date that Amazon will roll the film out online.
Coming 2 America sees Murphy return as African Prince Akeem, who discovers that he had fathered a son during his first visit to America and now must return to find and prepare him to become a new prince of the kingdom. Arsenio Hall, James Earl Jones and Shari Headley fro the original film are returning for the sequel and are joined by Jermaine Fowler, Tracy Morgan, Wesley Snipes, Leslie Jones and KiKi Layne.
The sale does not come as much of a surprise. With theater attendance still very low due to coronavirus issues, it was looking doubtful if the film could make enough to turn a profit. Rather than wait for better consitionds to release the film theatrically, the studio has instead chosen to sell it to a streamer in order to insure that they at least break even on the project.
This is not the first film that Paramount has offloaded to a streaming service either. They also sold sold the Aaron Sorkin written and directed historical drama Trial of the Chicago 7 and the romantic comedy The Lovebirds to Netflix. Other studios are also doing it with Sony selling the Tom Hanks WWII drama Greyhound to Apple+ while Disney+ picked up the animated film Clouds from Warner Brothers.
