Eddie Murphy is coming back to television. The comedy icon will star in and executive produce "The Chairman," a drama series in development at Peacock from "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner, marking his first scripted television role ever and his first series regular gig since he left "Saturday Night Live" in 1984.
The project, confirmed Thursday, pairs two of the most decorated names in their respective mediums. Weiner is a nine-time Emmy winner who created and ran "Mad Men," one of the defining dramas of the prestige TV era, and served as a writer and executive producer on "The Sopranos" before that. "The Chairman" will be his first major television project since Prime Video's 2018 anthology "The Romanoffs," an eight-year absence from the medium he helped elevate.
Plot details have not been announced, and the series is in development rather than greenlit to series. It is being produced by 101 Studios and Universal Television, part of the Universal Studio Group. The pairing is notable on its own: it is the first collaboration between NBCUniversal and 101 Studios since their first-look deal kicked off in January.
The news confirms a rumor that has been circulating for a month. Jeff Sneider first reported around September 1 that Murphy and Weiner were circling a television project together, and Thursday's confirmation turns one of the fall's most intriguing whispers into a real development.
For Murphy, the move is a genuine first. He has never taken a scripted live-action TV role, and he has not been a series regular on television since his breakout years on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" more than four decades ago. (He did executive produce the animated Fox series "The PJs," but that was behind the camera.) Everything since, from "48 Hrs." and "Beverly Hills Cop" to "Coming to America" and "The Nutty Professor," has been built on the big screen.
The timing fits a career that has been in active revival mode. Murphy earned some of the best reviews of his career for "Dolemite Is My Name," followed it with "Coming 2 America" and "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F," headlined Prime Video's "The Pickup" alongside Pete Davidson and Keke Palmer, and opened up in the Netflix documentary "Being Eddie." His upcoming slate includes "Shrek 5," a "Donkey" spinoff, and a turn as Inspector Clouseau in a new "Pink Panther."
For actors, the headline is not just the casting, it is what the casting says. A film icon of Murphy's stature taking his first scripted series at this stage of his career says everything about where prestige television sits now. It has become the second-act lane for movie stars, the place where a legacy gets extended rather than wound down. And with Weiner returning to television after eight years, this does not read as a paycheck gig. It reads as an event.