Starlog Archives: Michael Ritchie - Directing "The Golden Child"
https://lebeauleblog.com/2017/01/14/starlog-archives-michael-ritchie-directing-the-golden-child/
Posted by lebeaushare
Director Michael Ritchie had a career that could be described as scattershot. If there’s a through-line, it’s that most of Ritchie’s movies were comedic. In the seventies, he made a name for himself with movies like The Candidate and The Bad News Bears. After a cold streak in the early eighties, Ritchie rebounded with Fletch and to a lesser extent the Goldie Hawn comedy Wildcats. Then he drew the short straw and had to direct Eddie Murphy in the limp action-comedy, The Golden Child.
While The Golden Child was a hit, it performed poorly when compared to Murphy’s recent releases at the time. Critical reaction could be summed up with a shrug. While The Golden Child won’t be remembered as anybody’s best work, it was a big movie at the time. Starlog talked to Ritchie in their January 1987 issue about what it was like to make a special-effects-heavy fantasy film with one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.