It’s a bird, it’s a plane… No, it’s “de plane, de plane!”
(Akiit.com) Eddie Murphy is set to star in a big-screen adaptation of Fantasy Island, the Aaron Spelling-produced primetime soap that ran from 1978-1984 on ABC and made a white-suited star of Ricardo Montalban, who played the island’s mysterious owner, Mr. Roarke.
As he’s wont to do, Murphy will play multiple characters in the film, which is being written by Norbit co-scribes Jay Scherick and David Rom, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Of course, aside from Roarke, the most memorable actor from the TV series was Hervé Villechaize as Tattoo, whose French-accented cry of “De plane! De plane!” ended up being the show’s trademark line.
While Villechaize’s little person stature would be a stretch for Murphy, one can’t put anything past the recent Academy Award nominee, who’s been fat, white, a woman and otherwise mired in makeup in multiple films.
Murphy most recently went under the prosthetics for Norbit which, although critically panned, made more than $157million worldwide (half that of The Nutty Professor, but not bad for being nowhere near as good).
Before the Dreamgirls star has a chance to make anyone’s dreams come true—for a price—on Fantasy Island, however, he’s set to star in the sci-fi comedy Starship Dave, about a troop of aliens who travel in a spaceship that looks like a human being. Trouble arises when the personable-looking UFO falls for an Earth-bound woman. This one bombs, er, blasts into theaters in May 2008.
Sure to pack ’em in the aisles, though, is Shrek the Third, which promises to be an all-star showcase of vocal stylings, or at least a partial Saturday Night Live reunion. Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Mike Myers, Antonio Banderas, Julie Andrews, John Cleese and Rupert Everett are joined this time around by Justin Timberlake, Amy Poehler, Eric Idle, John Krasinski, Ian McShane, Maya Rudolph, Cheri Oteri and Amy Sedaris as Shrek tries to get out of being heir to the throne of Far, Far Away.
By Natalie Finn