For the first time in nearly a decade, Memphis moviemaker Craig Brewer will have a new feature film on the big screen as “Dolemite Is My Name” opens theatrically in New York, Los Angeles and Memphis on Friday, Oct. 4, before its Oct. 25 arrival on Netflix.

The film – playing on two screens locally at Malco’s Paradiso theater – is part biopic, part making-of re-creation, and all eagerly anticipated comeback vehicle for one of the biggest stars in modern American entertainment: Eddie Murphy, who is using it as a launch pad for the return to some of his greatest triumphs, including a “Saturday Night Live” hosting gig later this year and a resumption of arguably his two most loved franchises, “Coming to America” and “Beverly Hills Cop.”

In “Dolemite Is My Name,” Murphy portrays struggling R&B singer Rudy Ray Moore, who, in 1970, transformed his career by creating the ribald proto-rapper pimp character “Dolemite,” which became an underground sensation on stage and record before Moore pushed the character onto the big screen amid the so-called ““blaxploitation” boom.

Scripted by Hollywood veterans Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander, “Dolemite Is My Name” is a skillful movie about the making of an enduringly, charmingly inept one, much in the spirit of the writing duo’s earlier “Ed Wood.” But this movie-about-making-a-movie concept also nods to Brewer’s own “Hustle & Flow,” where Memphis pimp/rapper protagonist Djay’s homemade recordings served as a kind of allegory of Brewer’s own homemade first completed movie, “The Poor & Hungry.”

Before taking it to the screen, the film shows Moore crafting the Dolemite character by mixing Redd Foxx with street patter and cutting it with some subtle, signifying sociology – and then getting the character over onstage to live audiences, both in his native Los Angeles and on the Southern so-called “chitlin’ circuit.” 

Scott Bomar translates Memphis soul sound for Brewer’s new movie ‘Dolemite’

Unlike “Hustle & Flow” and “Black Snake Moan,” which were unmistakably Craig Brewer joints, to use Spike Lee’s auteurist term, “Dolemite Is My Name” is a movie with more widely shared authorship. As much as Brewer, Karaszewski and Alexander have all shaped it, you might say the film’s primary authors are the film’s subject – the late Rudy Ray Moore himself – and the man who re-creates him, Murphy. 

Brewer had been a producer, director and writer for the hit Fox television series “Empire” before leaving the show after last season. “Dolemite Is My Name” is his first time helming a feature film since 2011’s less successful – artistically and one presumes commercially – dip into pre-existing IP: “Footloose.” It’s a return to the long-form director’s chair that’s already created another: Brewer is currently directing Murphy in “Coming 2 America,” a due-in-2020 sequel to Murphy’s 1988 modern comedy classic. 

Brewer has pitched a tent on Eddie Murphy Island, where the breeze feels great. 

The still Memphis-based Brewer is currently midway through what’s expected to be a four-month shoot for “Coming 2 America.” He took a break from filming in Atlanta to talk about “Dolemite Is My Name” and more. 

On Saturday, Oct. 5, Brewer will be back in Memphis, introducing the 7 p.m. and 9:45 p.m. screenings of “Dolemite” at Paradiso, and conducting a Q&A after the 7 p.m. screening. 

DAILY MEMPHIAN: “Hustle & Flow” was a film about someone trying to forge a career, made by someone trying to forge a career. While “Dolemite” isn’t your script, it’s about someone trying to create a new chapter for themselves mid-career. I assume that had some personal resonance?

BREWER: It does. I was excited to do the movie because of the people who were involved and its subject matter, but I’ve always got to find a way in, for my heart. And that’s definitely what I related to with the project. I think that’s what a lot of people who’ve hung on with a particular job experience. Are they going to get better? It hasn’t been up to what you think your potential is, and then something comes along and you feel invigorated. 

Sometimes we have to make those projects that are going to invigorate us, from scratch. Or a job might come along and magic can happen. I just got lucky that I got Eddie Murphy and Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander and most importantly Netflix, who are just all about making an interesting movie no matter what it is.

Did you ever think you were done directing full-length features?

I don’t know if I thought I was done. I thought I would return to doing something like “The Poor & Hungry,” where it was just stories and characters and didn’t have to have any expectations at the box office. Economics comes into the way people feel about movies sometimes, especially the people who create them. And so much of it is so uncertain.

But when I was doing television, I thought there was this pleasant rhythm to it. When you would write something, you would rehearse it, shoot it, cut it and it would air. I felt like I was back in my theater days. The whole process of the movie business does not make you feel like you’re making anything when you’re constantly in a script development situation. Television gave me that fix. And I learned a lot. 

You came up in that very traditional, at least for our generation, paradigm of the indie writer/director. Was working on “Empire” instructive for working on something like “Dolemite Is My Name”? I know everything is collaborative, but this has particularly shared authorship. You, the screenwriters, Murphy and even Rudy Ray Moore. 

I think that’s what the writers’ room at “Empire” provided me, the right attitude about that kind of collaboration. It’s actually quite freeing, but it required me to learn something that I needed to learn, which was perhaps to shut up more, to listen more. 

That was hard for you, right?

Yeah. (Laughs.) I think when you’re in your late 20s and early 30s and you’re trying to launch a career, so much of the fuel in your rocket ship is blind enthusiasm that your way is the right way. Sometimes those rockets crash. I found that television was this place where it was “Wait a minute, what are the best ideas? Let’s wrangle them into something that we all love.” 

Larry and Scott were on set with me every day. We would sometimes come up with new bits on the spot. They were always in the edit-room screenings I would have. It felt like we were all making a movie that we truly cared about. I know we say that a lot in the industry, but we really did care about it. We felt honored just to be given a budget and an artist like Eddie Murphy to go off and make this story. But we really were committed to what Rudy Ray Moore represented. I feel like I’ve lived that kind of a story of not having many tools or resources and you try to will yourself into something. 

We’re roughly the same age, so I can assume that Eddie Murphy loomed very large for you growing up. 

Completely. You probably discovered him as I did, on “Saturday Night Live.” We probably didn’t catch all the jokes, but we loved it. And suddenly here comes Eddie Murphy, making these jokes about Gumby and Mr. Rogers and he blew our minds. 

I’ve tried to explain to people what those comedy specials were back in the day. Now they happen all the time, but “Delirious” was electric. It was a thing we all had to see. And then when we saw it, we bought the VHS and watched it over and over again. 

He’s a part of the ingredients of what makes us who we are. I’m not being overly dramatic about this. I’m serious. I can’t explain to people what it was when Eddie Murphy suddenly came into everybody’s life. There hasn’t been something like that recently. 

What was your entry point to the Dolemite character?

I don’t know if you remember, but there was that movie that I made before “The Poor & Hungry” called “Melody’s Surviving.” It was a huge disaster for me. I’d been such a cheerleader, and I’d gathered all these people who worked at Barnes & Noble with me, got my family involved, got a credit card so I could blow it up and make the movie, and it was awful. Making it was awful. But I was defiant, I was clinging onto a boat that was sinking. 

While we were making that movie, we’d watch indie cinema as well as blaxploitation movies. We really got into “The Mack” and “Black Samson,” but we also saw “Dolemite” and we would all crack up watching that movie. Deep down we knew we were making that movie. Nothing was really professional and boom mics were in our shots. I was making that movie and secretly I needed to laugh at something. 

So I’d known about “Dolemite” the movie for a long time, but it was only recently I’d started collecting the records. Reading the script I got to know a lot more about him, and you see that there’s this really rich story of a guy who creates his own path. And now that I know more about him, I think that within that world of blaxploitation, he was trying to carve out a true signature filmmaking style. Yeah, I said it. He was trying to be a badass pimp, but you’re kind of in on the fact that he’s overboard with it. There’s this quality to the “Dolemite” movie even beyond its flaws that’s kind of outrageous, and so was Rudy. Now I’m seeing the movie a little bit differently than I saw it when I started off as a filmmaker. 

You’re doing “Coming 2 America” in Atlanta, you did “Dolemite” in Los Angeles and “Empire” in Chicago. Has that made it easier or harder to keep a Memphis connection?

In the last couple of years, I’ve been away from Memphis a lot. It’s been a unique time, but I’m really productive and really happy and still get to hang with my kids when they come to the set and still have a really strong family unit. But I’m all over the place. 

Mentally, I’ve had to make a change, and it’s helped me. I still feel a connection to Memphis, and I love Memphis. But I’m feeling more like a citizen of the world, and right now I’m in Zamunda (a “Coming 2 America” setting). I feel good about it. It’s an exciting time. 

It feels like Memphis has been able to watch how the film and television industry has evolved just by watching your career.

It’s been interesting that I’ve done every different iteration of it. I’ve done the no-budget filmmaking. I’ve done web series. I’ve done the whole ‘make a film and take it to Sundance and sell it.’ I’ve done a remake. I’m doing a sequel. Today I was talking to someone and saying, this is a great opportunity to learn. And I’ve got to remember that. 

Making a move now for a streaming service is different. And it’s different because of one crucial thing. Immediately when it comes out, everyone will have access to it, everyone can watch it and I’m not having to wake up in the morning looking in the arts section to see how much it made over the weekend. That was always an exciting thing to report, but with the marketplace changing and attitudes changing, I don’t know if you can judge a movie anymore by that number. 

Is this the first time you’ve had a movie open while you’re in production on the next thing?

Yeah. I’ve never had to make a movie and sell a movie at the same time. 

You’ll miss it opening night but will be in Memphis Saturday.

I got to watch a screening of “Hustle & Flow” recently in Memphis. Indie Memphis had a screening of it. And it was wild to watch it with a crowd after so many years. I forgot how much they enjoy certain parts, applauding or getting into “Whoop That Trick.” I forgot what felt like to be in a theater experiencing that movie. It has been on TV so many times that I’d forgotten about that. I forgot about the laughs. When “Dolemite Is My Name” is playing, there’s nothing I love more than being in a crowd of people watching that movie. It feels so good. Look, it’s rare: The movie’s opening in New York, Los Angeles and Memphis, Tennessee. That’s a special engagement that Malco set up in my hometown. It’s a special thing. I really hope people come out to see it, because it’s a blast to see with a crowd.