announces his decision live on air to the studio audience and to his boss. Kate hears of his decision and forgives Ricky, racing back to the studio to be with him. They have a romantic reunion on the air, and the show is ended. Afterwards, Ricky and Kate say their goodbyes to the fully recovered G, who wanders off into the distance to continue his pilgrimage. Cast Eddie Murphy as G Jeff Goldblum as Ricky Hayman Kelly Preston as Kate Newell Robert Loggia as John McBainbridge Jon Cryer as Barry Eric McCormack as Scott Hawkes Jennifer Bini Taylor as Hot Tub Girl Adriana Cataño as Television hostess Eugene Levy as Guy on background television (uncredited) Morgan Fairchild, Betty White, Florence Henderson, James Brown, Soupy Sales, Dan Marino, Willard Scott, Nick Santa Maria and Nino Cerruti appear as themselves. Production According to Splitsider, John Candy was signed on for the role played by Murphy back in 1993, a year before the former's death. Murphy turned down the lead role that eventually went to Chris Tucker in Rush Hour to star in this film instead. Reception Box office Holy Man was a major box office failure, as it grossed $12,069,719 in North America, compared to its budget of over $60 million. The film was released in the United Kingdom on February 19, 1999, and only opened on #8. Critical response Holy Man received largely negative reviews, with criticism aimed at the script and acting. Based on 50 reviews collected by the film review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes, 12% of critics gave Holy Man a positive review, with an average rating of 3.8/10. Its consensus states: "Cloying and unfunny, Holy Man wastes the repartee between Eddie Murphy and Jeff Goldblum on the gospel of toothless satire and unearned sentimentality." On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100, the film has a score of 41 based on reviews from 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Roger Ebert for the Chicago Sun Times gave it 2 out of 4 stars, calling Murphy's character "an uninteresting enigma" and criticizing the film for being too credulous and missing opportunities for satire. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale. In June 2009, Murphy referred to Holy Man as a "horrendous movie". Although he did not identify the film by name, he mentioned it on