‘Coming 2 America’: How to Watch the Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall Sequel

It’s been 33 years since the original Coming to America, which saw Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall traveling from the fictional African nation of Zamunda to (you guessed it) America in order to find Murphy’s Prince Akeem a bride. The comedy classic finally has a sequel, Coming 2 America, that fans can watch for free if they have an Amazon Prime account. If you are not one of the 112 million people who have a Prime account, you can sign up for a 30-day free trial to watch the film.

The sequel film has been getting mixed reviews, but many are saying that it’s a worthy follow-up. Murphy and Hall spoke to the New York Times and explained while the time felt right to continue the story over three decades later. “We never thought about doing a sequel,” Murphy explained. “The way the story ended was kind of like, ‘And they lived happily ever after.’ Then all this time passed and the movie became this cult thing. Catchphrases from the movie start working their way into the culture. Stores turning themselves into McDowell’s. I see Beyoncé and Jay-Z dressed up like the Zamunda characters for Halloween.”

However, due to its cultural staying power, Murphy began to toy with the idea of a sequel a few years ago. “Then Ryan Coogler, before he directed Black Panther, I meet with him and he says, I want to do a Coming to America sequel,” Murphy continued. “He had an idea for Michael B. Jordan to play my son and he would be looking for a wife. I was like, then the movie would be about the son, it’s not our characters, we already did that. It didn’t come together.”

“But all that made me start thinking, maybe we should do a sequel,” Murphy admitted. “I saw the Terminator movie where they made Arnold Schwarzenegger young — his face looked like Arnold, but young — and that’s where I got it. [Snaps fingers] If we use that to make us young and create a new scene in the club [from the original Coming to America] where we’re out looking for the girls, so it’s part of that night. I go home with a girl and I’m high — that was the piece we needed to start the flow.”

“I never thought about it because we had always said we’re going to leave Coming to America where it is,” Hall admitted. “But I text him sometimes when I do my coffee run in the morning, and he says, What are you doing? I think you should read this script now. And I read half of it sitting in his yard. It was so exciting and so good.”