First trailer arrives for Eddie Murphy's A Thousand Words

It’s been a fairly rough week for Eddie Murphy. With talk of a comeback boosted by favourable Tower Heist reviews and the promise of Hollywood’s hottest gig as host of the Oscars, the rug was swiftly pulled away thanks to Brett Ratner’s foot-in-mouth “rehearsals” moment.

Now, not only has Eddie stepped down from Oscar-hosting duties, but a new trailer has arrived to promote upcoming comedy A Thousand Words . And quite frankly, it’s an out and out stinker.

Murphy stars as Jack McCall, a literary agent whose stock in trade is the ability to close any deal with a torrent of silver-tongued yammering. However, an encounter with a New Age guru and a magic tree (yes, really) means Jack only has a thousand words left to say before he, er, dies.

Check out the trailer below. It might not be intentionally funny, but we found ourselves chuckling away regardless…

The coffee-ordering scene alone would seem to explain Eddie’s recent decision to turn his back on half-baked, family friendly comedies. In fairness to him, this one has been made for almost a year now, but the trailer couldn’t have arrived at a worse time.

A Thousand Words also stars Kerry Washington and Alison Janney, and arrives in UK cinemas on 6 April 2012. Let’s hope they’ve saved back the best jokes for the finished film. That’s usually how trailers work, right?

George was once GamesRadar's resident movie news person, based out of London. He understands that all men must die, but he'd rather not think about it. But now he's working at Stylist Magazine.