Eddie Murphy's 'Nutty' buddy

Did Eddie Murphy speak too soon this summer when he said he was giving up the acting racket? He was on the verge, then, of "Meet Dave," so maybe the timing for such a pronouncement was actually pretty good. (See various " 'Meet Dave' tanked" stories that followed its humiliating $5.2 million opening weekend).

The one-time Oscar nominee's self-imposed deadline for leaving the business and going back to his standup roots, he said, was his 50th birthday. That would give him about two years and change now, with a chunk of that potentially eaten up by the long-gestating "Beverly Hills Cop," version 2.0.

Does that leave room for another go-round of that infamous farting family, the Klumps?

Word from THR today is that Universal and Imagine Entertainment want a third "Nutty Professor" movie to add to the money-making franchise (translation: Those film series believed to be sure things, but aren't necessarily). The studios are in early development stages and have put out a call to writers for their ideas on the follow-up to "Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps." That one will be tough to upstage.

Can Murphy fit it all in? If only for the sake of the Razzie Awards, we kind of hope so.