Caffeinated Clint
It’s official : The long-gestating “Beverly Hills Cop 4” (aka simply, but questionably, “Beverly Hills Cop”) is Eddie Murphy’s next film.
The actor revealed that a reprise of Axel Foley is next on his docket in an interview with Collider.
“Yeah that’s what we’re doing after Coming to America 2. We’re doing Beverly Hills Cop and then the plan is to get back on stage and do standup. That’s what I’ll be doing mostly is standup. These movies and Saturday Night Live it’s kind of like…I’m looking at it as a bookend. If I decided I wanted to stay on the couch forever, I ended it on a funny note.”
A fourth “Beverly Hills Cop” has been in the works for over a decade. There have been numerous directors attached (most notably, Brett Ratner), and just as many drafts.
“Cop” staple Judge Reinhold told Empire a few years back that he’s heard “a lot of scenarios over the years. Robert Towne pitched what I thought was cool: the Japanese literally take over Sony! But that didn’t go. And then we had something in London. I don’t know who was responsible for that, but I just saw Taggart and me in bobby hats. I don’t mean to diss the force there, but that would have been funny. So there were scenarios that I thought were delightful, but for one reason or another they didn’t get there. When you’re dealing with big committees, it’s easy for these things to fall through the cracks and splatter on the wall.”
One draft, by “Chicago Fire” alumni Derek Haas and Michael Brandt, saw Foley back in Beverly Hills to investigate the murder of his friend Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold).
Haas told us that the new film needed to be connected the original 1984 film.
“I think you have to focus on the protagonist and set up a conflict based on or suggested by the first movie. You don’t sacrifice character just for bigger action or more special effects. You always start with character and say, “what does he want at the beginning of the film?” Then just tell a great story that doesn’t snub what came before it but builds on it.’’
No word whether the latest concept shares any similarities with the latter but Murphy has said that he’d like the film to embody the tone of the original film — and with that, an R rating.
Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah were attached to direct the film but with their commitments to “Bad Boys For Life”, not to mention the film’s elongated development process, it’s unknown whether they’re still onboard “Cop 4” .
In addition to Netflix’s “Dolemite is my Name”, premiering at the end of the month, Murphy will host the Christmas episode of “Saturday Night Live” on December 21. “Coming to America 2” will be released next Summer.
