Eddie's Out

He might be at the Oscars this year as a
guest but he won't be there as the host!

Director Brett Ratner stuck his foot in his mouth at the Tower Heist screening, which made good friend Eddie Murphy decide to walk away from his Oscar hosting gig. Too bad, I was looking forward to it.

Here's the story...

The offending comment occurred during a Q&A session after a screening of Tower Heist in LA. According to The Wrap, it went like this.

Moderator: So you get this entire group of actors together -- what was rehearsal like?

Ratner: Rehearsal? What’s that? Rehearsal’s for fags. Rehearsal. Not much. A lot of prep, preparation, complex action sequences, visual effects. Storyboards, animatics. The process was I made the actors stick to the script. And they wanted to, because the script was great.

Several audience members left after that and later Ratner issued an apology. He said, “I apologize for any offense my remarks caused. It was a dumb way of expressing myself. Everyone who knows me knows that I don’t have a prejudiced bone in my body. But as a storyteller I should have been much more thoughtful about the power of language and my choice of words.”

Nevertheless, the damage was done and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was not too happy about Ratner's 'choice of words.' Ratner resigned as Oscar's producer yesterday. People were speculating that his good friend Murphy might follow suit.

Today he did. In his statement, he said, "I completely understand and support each party's decision with regard to a change of producers for this year's Academy Awards ceremony. I was truly looking forward to being a part of the show that our production team and writers were just starting to develop, but I'm sure that the new production team and host will do an equally great job."

In that article, the author cited that 'early in his career', Murphy had gotten in hot water a while back with comments he'd made about AIDS and calling gays derogatory names. I don't remember that ... but I do remember him getting in trouble with a tranny back in the day.

This just in... Producer Brian Grazer (24, A Beautiful Mind, American Gangster) is in as the new producer.