We've already elaborated on why we think this is, but Fox chieftain/upwardly mobile TV host Tom Rothman unwittingly proffered his own opinion on the matter last year in a chat with Goldstein:

Fox's reluctance to promote the film's sci-fi nature is actually in keeping with studio Co-Chairman Tom Rothman's long-held belief that sci-fi films and films set in the future are box-office poison. In 2006, the studio had Ben Stiller, Jim Carrey and filmmaker Jay Roach all signed up to do a big comedy called Used Guys, but got cold feet, killing the project.

Why? Rothman thought it was too expensive. But more important, the studio chief was worried about the subject matter—it was a sci-fi comedy about men living in a women-ruled world. Not long after the project was axed, when I was having lunch with Rothman, I asked him why he was so adamant about dumping the film. He threw a question right back at me. "Can you name one sci-fi comedy that's ever made any money?" When I couldn't come up with an answer, he said, triumphantly: "See!" (I was halfway home before I thought of the perfect comeback: Men in Black.)

First of all: Tom. Seriously. When are you going to invite us to lunch? We know you probably didn't see the whole "Goldstein blogs" thing coming either, but still. What's your Friday look like? Second: Actually, we have no second. Have we mentioned that nobody cares about Eddie Murphy? Sucks for Paramount, as Goldstein mentions, which has two Murphy vehicles (A Thousand Words and NowhereLand) on the way this fall. Alas, we don't make the rules. But we can make the reservations — call us, Tom!

• No one wanted to 'Meet Dave' [The Big Picture]

But the knives are out anyway, with at least one impassioned plea calling for Murphy's retirement and another damning rundown of 50 not-impressive films that had higher-grossing opening weekends than Meet Dave (which even our lowball estimate last Friday waaaay overshot). But the scope of the crash-and-burn — not to mention the relative quietude of the backlash — suggests a less-controversial denouement: Nobody cares about Eddie Murphy.

Which isn't to say Murphy is irrelevant. They're different phenomena. He's less than two years removed from his Oscar-nominated performance in Dreamgirls — a performance for which he was a 50-50 shot right up to the point when Rachel Weisz opened the envelope. And you don't need us to revive the rap that some argue kept him off the stage: A surly, studio-hating, tranny-whore-patronizing, Norbit-starring, paycheck-cashing boor. But one who, as junkie bandleader James "Thunder" Early, restored older viewers' faith in Murphy as a dynamic screen actor.

The fat suits and multiple personalities he'd adopted since Coming to America (bludgeoning the form to death in the Nutty Professor films and eventually Norbit) called greater attention to the range of his early comic work. As a throwback to Murphy's predatory live act — on TV, in concert and in movies — it was that much easier to see what culture had lost. It was even easier to see what replaced it: A crowd-pleaser for hire in an era when crowd-pleasers no longer transcend media. There can only be so many, and they can only last so long.

Considering Murphy's big-screen longevity — 26 years this December — his downturn signals anything but irrelevance. More than any recent bust by Myers or Jim Carrey, Meet Dave's disastrous showing owes less to Murphy's presence than to Fox's miscalculation of what that presence means. This is important. The half of the so-called marketing quadrants that made Norbit a hit — men and women under 25 — weren't there to see Eddie Murphy. They were there for the Trick — the concept, the execution, the ease of it all, however crude, stupid and condescending. Basically, they were there for the movie part of it. They weren't yet born when Murphy was Murphy; they didn't know any mighty had fallen, nor from how far up.

Fox counted on that perspective, however, in foisting "Eddie Murphy in Eddie Murphy in Meet Dave" — even if Murphy was too far gone for our liking, he had proven reliable enough for a few of the studio's recent family romps. Right? Doctor Doolittle? Right? Maybe our kids would dig it, while we barely tolerated it for their sake, and, by summer dog-days extension, for our own.

Except "our" kids don't care. They've got better things to do. And we don't care that they don't care. And we don't care that the millions of others who don't care (their numbers reflect indirectly in Meet Dave's box-office trough) don't care either. All we feel is sort of a relief at no longer having to pretend to care — no more calling for Murphy's head or lamenting his choices. That it should happen to such a household name reinforces only its novelty, not its unlikelihood; actors are forgotten and disused all the time. Eddie Murphy's indelibility is his only entitlement; he's achieved that much, Oscar losses and all.

His value, though? His very place? Gone. And this is us, shrugging.