First Movie in Eddie Murphy Deal With Amazon Prime Video Announced

Big News for all Eddie Murphy fans, as the first of his three films set for release on Amazon Prime has been officially announced.

The former Saturday Night Live comedian known for huge movie hits like 48 hours, Trading Places, The Nutty Professor, Coming to America and more recently Coming 2 America, has plans for THREE brand new movies coming to Amazon's Prime Video service. According to Deadline, the first of those will be "Candy Cane Lane," which Murphy will star in.

Reginald Hudlin will direct the movie, and Murphy himself will serve as a producer. That brings back the combo behind “Boomerang,” the 1992 huge hit film.

The picture will also spark the first release from the Amazon Studios and Murphy’s three movie deal with the streaming giant!

Amazon had a lot of success when it acquired "Coming 2 America" from Paramount during the pandemic. Deadline said the movie was the number one streamed movie its opening weekend, and was the top streamed film for Black audiences all year.

"As we know firsthand with our hit Coming 2 America, Eddie is someone who brings global audiences together, and we can’t wait to make it happen again." said Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios. "We look forward to seeing the multi-talented Reggie Hudlin take the helm in bringing this future holiday classic to life!"

Hudlin has been a successful producer and director for years, putting out films like "Marshall," "House Party" and others.

There's no release date set for the film, but based on it just being announced, it would likely be in 2023. Eddie Murphy is also currently working on "Beverly Hills Cop 4" and a film with Jonah Hill called "You People." Both of those projects are for Netflix.

Let the raging debate on the best barbecue cities in America begin, and yes North Carolina cities are in the discussion!

But first, can we agree that nothing is better than a big old plate of bar-b-que (or BBQ, or barbecue, or whatever 50 other ways you want to spell it)? And if you will permit, I personally think we in North Carolina have, by far, the best Que in the country.

Our friends over at LawnStarter aimed to "solve" the great barbecue debate, and ranked the biggest U.S. cities based on 18 hallmarks of a true ’cue hub.

The criteria used examined the number of cooking teams and smokehouse per square mile, the consumer rating for both, the awards won by the teams, the number of bar-b-cue festivals held and the number of Kansas City Barbecue Society sanctioned events held.

"What are the key ingredients of the best BBQ city? Award-winning barbecue restaurants, experience hosting a “master-level” competition, multiple barbecue festivals, and high ratings, among others."

Below is a list of the top 10. Also included in the list are 7 North Carolina cities that made the cut. There are a couple obvious ones at the top, but it's notable that the first North Carolina city doesn't come in until number 15!

And in case you are wondering, yes Fayetteville is in the top 50 for best barbecue cities in America, along with two other North Carolina cities. Let's take a look.

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