“They’re developing it,” star Eddie Murphy says of Beverly Hills 5 – mere days ahead of the release of the fourth film, Axel F.
It’s taken almost 30 years for a fourth Beverly Hills Cop movie to come out, but it sounds as though regular star Eddie Murphy and producer Jerry Bruckheimer are attacking Beverly Hills Cop 5 with a bit more urgency.
Days before the latest film, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F comes out, Murphy has said in an interview with Variety that a script for another sequel is in development, adding, “If it comes together, we’ll be doing another one.”
Separately, Bruckheimer said, “We have a couple of stories in mind” for Beverly Hills Cop 5.
It’s a step forward from the 20th June, when Murphy said “I hope so” when asked about the possibility of another sequel.
Directed by Mark Molloy, Axel F sees Murphy return as the smart-talking cop of the title (full name: Axel Foley) for the first time since 1994’s Beverly Hills Cop III. Directed by John Landis, it was an unexpected misfire, making less than half the box office of its predecessors and receiving some scathing notices from critics.
It was all a marked contrast from the original Beverly Hills Cop in 1984 – a film once intended as a vehicle for Sylvester Stallone before Eddie Murphy, who’d just broken through as an actor with the 1982 thriller, 48 Hrs.
A fish-out-of-water comedy thriller about a Detroit detective thrown into a glamorous part of Los Angeles, Beverly Hills Cop unexpectedly became the biggest film of 1984, and confirmed Murphy’s status as one of Hollywood’s biggest young stars (he was still 26 at the time of filming).
Tony Scott took over from Martin Brest as director on 1987’s Beverly Hills Cop II, which was another major hit.
The disappointment surrounding Beverly Hills Cop III saw a proposed fourth film vanish into development hell for decades, before production on Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F finally got going in 2022. The belated sequel will reunite Murphy with Judge Reinhold, John Ashton and Paul Reiser from the earlier films, while Joseph Gordon-Levitt will play Axel’s new partner.
Time will tell whether it’ll capture the earlier films’ 20th century magic.
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F debuts on Netflix on the 3rd July.
