Totally rejecting Eddie Murphy

We love the well-turned catch phrase, and apparently there's a new one in town and god forbid your movie get labeled with it.

The Projector has coined a term for the "who cares?" phenomenon, and it's called Total Concept Rejection, or TCR for short.

The summer seems to have had several victims so far -- see: "Speed Racer," "The Love Guru," or better yet, don't -- and there's one opening today. "Meet Dave," starring Oscar nominee and soon-to-retire actor Eddie Murphy has tracked so poorly that it might not break $10 million at the boxoffice. (Neck-and-neck with b.o. cellar dweller "Pluto Nash?")

Rotten Tomatoes rating: 21% fresh, with such reviewer comments as, "only first-trimester zygotes will find this funny." Ouch. At least it's not drawing any "Norbit" comparisons -- sorry, Razzies!

Murphy, perhaps already winding down his acting career or just unable to stomach his own movie, reportedly skipped the premiere this week. When you're plotting the rest of your life, every hour counts.

Pop quiz: How many TCR movies can you name?

A few of our favorites after the jump.

Would it be cheating if we just listed all the recent movies that had anything to do, even peripherally, with the Iraq war? "Stop-Loss," "Rendition," "Lions for Lambs," oh we could go on.

Indie total concept rejects: "Teeth," "Young@Heart," "Funny Games."

Your turn, but no fair picking on the foreign films. Nobody sees those anymore. Now if you'll excuse us, we're headed to the 10:05 showing of "Hellboy."

Comments

[jake]

The Love Guru could have done better if they opened on a different release date.

It's really bad when the star of the movie won't even go to his own premiere and he expects others to go?