Dolemite Is My Name: Eddie Murphy stars in Netflix Oscar hopeful

There must be something in the water. From Adam Sandler reinventing himself in the upcoming Uncut Gems directed by the Safdie brothers to Eddie Murphy making a play for Oscar glory in Dolemite is My Name, A-list comedians are making major comebacks this year.

In the actor-comedian’s first film in three years, Murphy plays Rudy Ray Moore, an actor who gained prominence during the Blaxploitation era of filmmaking in the '70s. Moore is best known for the character he created for the stage and the 1975 film Dolemite.

It wasn’t an easy journey for Moore, as the first footage shows. After a string of failures as a comedian, he decides to assume an alter ego: the titular pimp with an eccentric eye for fashion. His albums were deemed too racy for music store shelves, but as he exploded in popularity through word-of-mouth, his dreams grew bigger with hopes of making it in the movies.

Alongside Murphy, the biopic boasts a stacked cast including Titus Burgess (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt), Keegan Michael-Key, Snoop Dogg and Blade himself, Wesley Snipes. The film has prestige behind the camera too to bolster its awards chances, in Hustle & Flow director Craig Bewer and a screenplay by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (The People vs. O.J. Simpson, Ed Wood).

Dolemite Is My Name comes to the small screen via Netflix later this year, but it’s at its premiere at Toronto International Film Festival where we’ll find out if the film is as radical as its era.