Eddie Murphy passed.

With all the absurd, vague caricatures that pop up in the trailer (featuring the corpse of Ice Cube's credibility and the dependably unfunny Mike Epps), this seems like a project tailor made for Eddie Murphy.

The lead would have to be rewritten older, but through and through, Lottery Ticket has all the makings of a modern Murphy vehicle: hackneyed premise, offensive-yet-bland racial jokes, petty motives, and a parade of supporting character moronically conceived with one-joke traits.

Eddie Murphy must have attached himself to the project and sent script notes along the lines of: "Can we establish the poop cannon earlier?" and: "Add more idiots - I need to play them all!"

Hopefully Little Bow Wow will bring some integrity to such a fresh concept.