Beverly Hills Cop 4

Beverly Hills Cop 4 is officially titled Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley and will bring Eddie Murphy back to the lead role. A number of other familiar faces are returning from the franchise.

Beverly Hills Cop 4 is on the way and it could be well worth the wait. It has been over 26 years since Eddie Murphy graced the silver screen as Axel Foley, his hero cop from the Beverly Hills Cop franchise. While the first two movies in the franchise were bonafide hits, the third movie, aptly titled Beverly Hills Cop III, fell flat. Perhaps that is one reason Eddie Murphy has waited this long for Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley, the fourth film in the Beverly Hills Cop franchise.

Believe it or not, Beverly Hills Cop 4 has been in development since the mid- ‘90s. Eddie Murphy was set to bring it to the big screen under his production banner (it eventually failed) and then in 2006, super producer Jerry Bruckheimer announced he was going to resurrect Axel Foley. When that failed, a fourth film never materialized, so why now after such a long time?

THE OFFICIAL TITLE IS BEVERLY HILLS COP: AXEL FOLEY

The Beverly Hills Cop 4 film comes with a new title and plot details that are light, but here is what we know so far (take it with a grain of salt). Apparently, Axel Foley is headed back to Beverly Hills to investigate the death of an old friend and while there he will reunite with his daughter and then team up with her by-the-books ex-boyfriend cop to help solve the case.

We are not sure how true this plotline really is, but the “death of an old friend” is concerning, especially now knowing who is returning for the Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley.

BEVERLY HILLS COP 4: AXEL FOLEY’S RETURNING CAST JUDGE REINHOLD AND JOHN ASHTON

Eddie Murphy’s return as Axel Foley was obviously big news, but his character and the films (at least the first two) wouldn’t be what they are without Murphy’s co-stars. Good news, they are all coming back.

The big names, obviously, are the return of Judge Reinhold and John Ashton as Detective Billy Rosewood and Detective John Taggart. Murphy was a great foil to the Beverly Hills police department in the first film and Taggart and Rosewood were his targets for the most part. The second film saw much of the same between those three.

Two more names, though, have added more nostalgic excitement for the upcoming Beverly Hills Cop 4. Paul Reiser, who played Foley’s Detroit partner Jeffrey Friedman, and Bronson Pinchot, who played fan favorite Serge, will also be back in their respective roles. It has been 35 years since Reiser has played Detective Friedman.

One name absent in all of this is Ronny Cox. It is unknown if the 84-year-old actor (who still appears in films) will be making an appearance. He was famously absent from the third film after he explained to the AV Club in a 2012 interview, “They wanted me to be in Beverly Hills Cop III, but… I read the script.”

JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT AND KEVIN BACON ARE JOINING THE CAST

Fans were ecstatic when they heard of the return of Reinhold, Ashton, Reiser, and Pinchot, but things ramped up even more as additional big names were added to the cast. In an unannounced role, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been added to the cast. Joining him will be Taylour Paige, who may be playing Eddie Murphy’s daughter, and Mark Pelligrino.

But the biggest name to recently come on board is Kevin Bacon. The Footloose star just finished filming the third season of his hit Showtime series, City on a Hill, and there is no word as to who Bacon will play. This is one solid addition.

MARK MOLLOY IS ON AS DIRECTOR

It’s been on the front burner, moved to the back burner, only to be back on the front burner so many times that there might need to be a new term applied to it besides “development hell.” Production has gone through various writers and various directors, but they have finally settled on both.

Mark Molloy has been chosen to replace departing directors, the team of Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, who left the film to take over the reins of Warner Bros superhero flick, Batgirl. Ultimately that was a tough move for Arbi and Fallah as Warner Bros. canceled the $90 million film that had over 95% of it shot and would have seen the return of Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman.

The hiring of Molloy comes as a bit of a surprise as he has never directed a feature film. Since starting his career back in 2016, Molloy has made his name directing commercials. Known for his work with Apple commercials, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley will be a massive jump for Molloy and a huge feather in his directing cap if all goes to plan.

Along with Molloy joining the production, the script was written by Josh Applebaum, Will Beall, and André Nemec, who based their story around the characters created by Beverly Hills Cop original writer, Daniel Petrie.

BEVERLY HILLS COP FIRST CAME OUT IN 1984

We will be as brief as possible here but with the franchise beginning in 1984 and ending in 1994, some of you may not have even been born or (gasp!) may not even really know the true genius of Eddie Murphy.

Eddie Murphy was at the end of his Saturday Night Live run when the first Beverly Hills Cop movie premiered. He was well on his way to becoming a megastar as Saturday Night Live gave way to Murphy’s first feature, 48 Hrs. He followed that with Trading Places, another huge hit for the rising comedian, and then came Beverly Hills Cop.

The story was about a Detroit cop (Murphy) who ends up in Beverly Hills following the trail of a killer who murdered his childhood friend. Once in Beverly Hills, Murphy forces himself into the investigation, using two unwilling detectives (Judge Reinhold and John Ashton) to help him root out the killer. Foley’s unorthodox ways land him in hot water time and again, but he finally begins to win over the two detectives, eventually bringing the killer to justice. The movie was an immediate hit, calling for more Foley.

Eddie Murphy would follow up the success of the first movie with a second three years later. It was a familiar story, bringing back all the characters from the first as Foley returns to Beverly Hills to investigate the near-fatal shooting of Chief Bogomil (Ronny Cox), whom Foley finally won over in the first movie. He teams up again with Reinhold and Ashton and police hijinks ensue.

A third Beverly Hills Cop came seven years after the second and it was a disaster from beginning to end. It had multiple scripts, most taking Foley overseas to London where he would deal with Scotland Yard and more kidnapping or killing. The final script was written by Die Hard scribe Steven E. de Souza and (surprise) was being touted as Die Hard in a theme park.

The film didn’t quite make those lofty goals. In fact, Murphy himself pretty much told Rolling Stone there was no reason for a third movie. “There’s no reason to do it. I don’t need the money and it’s not gonna break any new ground. How often can you have Axel Foley talk fast and get into a place he doesn’t belong? But these motherfuckers are developing scripts for it. They’re in pre-production. The only reason to do a Cop III is to beat the bank, and Paramount ain’t gonna write me no check as big as I want to do something like that. In fact, if I do a Cop III, you can safely say, ‘Ooh, he must have got a lot of money!'”

Of the over $70 million spent on making the film, $15 million was in a check to Murphy.

EDDIE MURPHY AND OTHERS TRIED TO MAKE BEVERLY HILLS COP 4

The idea of a Beverly Hills Cop 4 has been around for decades. Eddie Murphy Productions, now defunct, was developing a fourth film back in the late ‘90s. Then Paramount took it on with Lorenzo di Bonaventura attached. The idea sat for some time until screenwriters Derek Haas & Michael Brandt developed a script that saw Reinhold’s Billy Rosewood getting killed, bringing Axel Foley back into action. That script was close to getting made but sat long enough that another director, Brett Ratner, was brought on board and nixed the idea of killing off fan-favorite Rosewood. It was back to square one.

Square one consisted of a new idea and a new script. But things on that front sat way too long and Ratner also had to move along. Obviously, during the early to mid-2000s, Murphy wasn’t in any hurry to make a fourth film. In fact, Murphy pretty much disappeared from Hollywood.

Let’s fast forward to 2019. Eddie Murphy is slowly making a comeback and hit it out of the park with his Netflix movie Dolemite is My Name. It was around this time that Murphy also announced that after 35 years he’d be returning to his roots on Saturday Night Live for their 2019 Christmas show.

That was another big hit for the comedian. Then the announcements kept coming. There would be Coming 2 America, a return to stand-up comedy, and a return to Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop 4.

What was crazy about his Beverly Hills Cop 4 announcement was that Murphy ALMOST revived Axel Foley earlier in the decade. He was set to star in the pilot for a Beverly Hills Cop TV series that was to star Brandon T. Jackson (Tropic Thunder, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief). The pilot was shot and screened for CBS executives, but they eventually passed.

Murphy told Indiewire why. “The reason that didn’t get picked up was because [the studio] thought that I was going to be in this show, because [the lead] was my son: ‘And you’re going to pop in every now and then.’ I was like, ‘I ain’t popping in shit.’ ‘Well, we ain’t making this TV show.’ I was in the pilot, but they wanted me to be there every week.”

BEVERLY HILLS COP 4 WILL BE RELEASED IN 2023

As the production of Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley just got underway, they have yet to give fans a release date. The film, which will be coming to Netflix, only has 2023 as the current timeframe. Once a firm date has been set, we will be sure to update you.