5 Actors Who Regretted Leaving Star Trek
1. Eddie Murphy
The Voyage Home is one of the great 1980s fish-out-of-water comedies that also happens to be a terrific Star Trek movie. It was also originally intended to be much funnier. While developing the fourth Star Trek film, Leonard Nimoy was contacted by Paramount head Jeffrey Katzenberg who told him that Eddie Murphy was a huge fan and would "kill" to be in the next movie.
Nimoy had a few meetings with Murphy, pitching him the character of an astrophysicist who comes into contact with Kirk, Spock and the crew. Or, as Murphy put it in a later interview "the jive dude in San Francisco with Spock". Preferring instead to play against type in the role of a Vulcan, Murphy passed on the script and the character was redeveloped into Dr. Gillian Taylor, a love interest for Kirk.
The film that Eddie Murphy did instead was fantasy comedy The Golden Child, which he later called a piece of s**t. Ironically, both films were released on the same day with The Voyage Home being the bigger commercial success, grossing $109 million in the domestic box office v.s. The Golden Child's $79 million. Murphy is said to have later quipped that he should have done the Star Trek movie.