Eddie Murphy is set to star in The Chairman, a drama series in development at Peacock from Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner. If greenlit, the project would mark Murphy’s first-ever role as the lead of a live-action scripted television series.
Murphy launched his career as a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1980 to 1984 before becoming one of film’s most consistently bankable stars, with credits spanning Beverly Hills Cop, Coming to America, Harlem Nights, Dreamgirls, and Dolemite Is My Name, among roughly 40 films since 48 Hours. Despite that scale of output, his only prior scripted television work came through voice acting on The PJs, the animated series he co-created for Fox in the late 1990s, alongside creating The Royal Family for CBS around the same period. Plot details for The Chairman remain undisclosed, leaving open what the title even refers to or what kind of story Murphy will be stepping into.
Landing Murphy for a straight dramatic lead is notable given how rarely he’s worked in that register on screen, though his Academy Award-nominated performance in Dreamgirls already demonstrated he can hold a dramatic role when given one. Pairing that with Weiner, who hasn’t had a series picked up since The Romanoffs ended its run on Amazon in 2018, adds another layer of intrigue: two major talents each stepping into something adjacent to unfamiliar territory, Murphy in drama, Weiner in his first new series in years.
The Chairman is produced by 101 Studios and Universal Television, marking the first project out of 101 Studios’ deal with NBCUniversal, which also brought Taylor Sheridan’s output to the studio and formally began in January. It’s also the first project tied to former Paramount executive Chris McCarthy’s new consulting role overseeing NBCUniversal’s relationship with 101 Studios, a deal first reported in November 2025. Murphy and Weiner both executive produce, with Weiner also having written and executive produced HBO’s The Sopranos earlier in his career. Murphy is coming off last year’s Netflix documentary Being Eddie, along with recent film roles in The Pickup and Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, and is next set to appear in Shrek 5, due out in 2027.
Peacock has not yet given The Chairman an official series order, so for now the project remains in development, with no cast, premiere date, or additional plot details announced.