The Nutty Professor is a 1996 American science fiction comedy film starring Eddie Murphy as the titular character. It is a remake of the 1963 film, which starred Jerry Lewis. Directed by Tom Shadyac, it co-stars Jada Pinkett, James Coburn, Larry Miller, Dave Chappelle, and John Ales. Filming began in May 1995 and wrapped in September 1995. The original music score was composed by David Newman. The Nutty Professor was released by Universal Pictures on June 28, 1996, and was a commercial and critical success. It won Best Makeup at the 69th Academy Awards. The film's success spawned a sequel, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, released in 2000.
Plot Sherman Klump, a morbidly obese, kind-hearted professor at Wellman College, creates an experimental formula that reconstructs someone's DNA for weight to be lost easier. Sherman, during a date at a club with Carla Purty, a chemistry graduate who is a big fan of his work, is made fun of for his weight by comedian Reggie Warrington. This influences him to test his serum on himself the next morning, losing 250 pounds within seconds. He initially celebrates the weight loss, but later finds the effects of the serum are only temporary. Sherman adopts a false identity, "Buddy Love", and invites Carla out on a date at the same club again. Reggie is present again, and Sherman takes revenge by heckling him mercilessly. Sherman's "Buddy" persona starts to develop an independent personality due to the heightened testosterone levels of the transformation, gradually changing from his regular good-natured self to perverted and super-confident. This transformation is seen by Klump's lab assistant Jason at the college. Buddy's identity also takes over Sherman's job and all the credit for his work. He meets Dean Richmond and wealthy businessman Harlan Hartley, the former planning to donate $10,000,000 to the science department. Buddy shows the serum, which impresses Hartley and Dean Richmond to the point where they invite him to the Alumni Ball the next night. Buddy then cheats on Carla with three women, and Carla dumps him out of disgust. After being fired as professor, Sherman attempts to stop the alter ego by destroying all of the serum samples, which he does with Jason's help. However, Buddy is hiding a sample of the serum in one of Sherman's diet shake cans, which Sherman drinks, causing him to transform into Buddy again. Jason discovers Buddy's testosterone levels are at a lethally high 60,000%, and gets to the ball in the middle of Buddy's demonstration of the serum. Buddy plans to drink the serum to kill Sherman permanently, resulting in a fight between the two identities. Sherman eventually transforms into his regular self and admits his misdeeds to the shocked audience, including his parents and Carla. As he leaves, Carla stops him and asks why he lied; he says he did not believe that she would accept him. While they don't initiate a romantic relationship, Sherman and Carla remain friends and share a dance together. Richmond rehires Sherman and Hartley gives the donation to Sherman.
Cast
Production Producer Brian Grazer pursued the idea of remaking The Nutty Professor with a black lead after it was suggested to him by music producer Russell Simmons. Murphy and Grazer had hoped John Landis would direct, having previously worked successfully with Murphy. Ultimately, Tom Shadyac, the director of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, joined the project. The Nutty Professor was the first Tom Shadyac film to feature outtakes over the closing credits.
Murphy, Barry Blaustein, David Sheffield and Steve Oedekerk worked together on the screenplay. The film is not a strict remake of the Jerry Lewis film; Murphy said, "we stripped down the story to its bare bones and built it up to this whole different thing", adding elements from the story of Jekyll and Hyde as well as Cyrano de Bergerac. Pinkett declined to play a role in Independence Day in order to star in The Nutty Professor. The film has a series of scenes with Murphy and comedian Dave Chappelle who plays insult comic Reggie Warrington. Much of their dialogue was improvised. Murphy was one of Chappelle's biggest comedic influences. Reggie Warrington is named after Reginald and Warrington Hudlin, brothers, and directors of one of Murphy's previous films, Boomerang. Reginald Hudlin was surprised to see the character was named after him and his brother, and to see the character violently stuffed into a piano. The film was made with the help of Jerry Lewis. He was an executive producer for both this film and the 2000 sequel Nutty Professor II: The Klumps. In 2009, he expressed regret for allowing the remakes, saying, "I have such respect for Eddie, but I should not have done it. What I did was perfect the first time around and all you're going to do is diminish that perfection by letting someone else do it."
Rick Baker created the fat suits for Murphy. They were made from urethane foam and a spandex suit, and filled with pockets of liquid to make it jiggle believably. It took three hours to apply the makeup each day. Baker praised Murphy, saying, "He really makes the stuff come to life, and he never complains. When we did The Nutty Professor [...], he spent 80-odd days in the makeup chair. As much as I love makeup, even I would have been complaining by the end, but Eddie didn't."
Music
Release
Home media The Nutty Professor was released on VHS and LaserDisc on November 12, 1996. During its first week of release, the film ranked second on the sales chart behind Toy Story and fifth on the rentals chart behind the latter film, Eraser, Mission: Impossible and Primal Fear. It had the fifth-highest rentals of 1996, ranking behind Braveheart, Seven, The Net and Twister with $39 million in rentals revenue. The film premiered on Blu-ray on March 6, 2012.
Reception
Box office The Nutty Professor was a box-office success, making an opening weekend gross with $25,411,725. It topped the box office during its opening weekend, beating out Eraser, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Striptease. The film would hold the record for having the highest opening weekend for an Eddie Murphy film until it was taken by Dr. Dolittle in 1998. It reached a gross of $128,814,019 domestically, and $145,147,000 internationally, for a total of $273,961,019 worldwide.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
