wasn't a pleasurable experience. I just wanted to direct—just to see if I can do it. And I found out that I can't, and I won't do it anymore. And the biggest thing is I didn't enjoy doing it. The problem with Harlem Nights wasn't the directing as much as it was the writing of it. It was just written fucked up, and that's because I threw it together real quick. And then it was disappointing because Richard wasn't the way I thought Richard was gonna be. I thought it would be like a collaborative thing where I would get to work with my idol, and then it would be like, "This is great." But Richard would come to the set, say his line and leave, it wasn't like a collaborative thing." Later he said: "That movie was a blur. It was Richard [Pryor], Robin Harris—all comedians. I remember Richard and Redd Foxx laughing offstage during the whole movie. The funniest shit was off camera, we're all just crying. Redd was a really funny dude, he would have the set screaming all the time. But afterwards it was like, Whoa, that's a lot of work. I was really young when I did it. I had one foot in the club, and one foot on the set, a lot of shit going on. It's amazing it came together." He also said he didn't know Pryor was sick at the time. "He was sick with MS by then, but nobody knew it was going on. And I was like a puppy to him 'cause he was my idol. "Hey! Let's go make this movie!" I never put it together what was happening till afterwards. So it was kind of sad, that part of it." Release Box office Opening in North America in mid-November 1989, the film debuted at No.1 its opening weekend. It grossed $16,096,808 from 2,180 screens during those first three days setting a record pre-holiday fall opening and would go on to collect a total of $60,864,870 domestically at the box office. Despite a fair gross, the film was considered a box office disappointment by the studio, earning roughly half of Murphy's earlier box office successes Coming to America and Beverly Hills Cop II from the previous two years. Critical response On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 27% based 37 reviews, with an average