At long last, Eddie Murphy is reprising his role as street-smart cop Axel Foley in the fourth instalment of the Beverly Hills Cop franchise, which is set to hit Netflix this summer. But, it isn’t easy being a middle aged action star. It’s been nearly thirty years since we last saw Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley, and in a recent interview with People Magazine he admitted that the shoot was a “rough one”.“I did Axel Foley when I was in my 20s. I am not in my 20s anymore,” he said. At any rate, Murphy won’t be the only aged actor from the original to show up, with many of the classic Beverly Hills Cop cast members are set to join him in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley. Here’s everything we know about Beverly Hills Cop 4!
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley is written by Will Beall, who wrote Gangster Squad, Aquaman and worked on Zack Snyder’s Justice League. While his credits lean more heavily into action than comedy, Beall was also one of the scribes behind the TV show Castle, which has the right vibe for the franchise. The action comedy film is being directed by Mark Malloy, a famed commercial director who is making his directorial debut. He replaced Bad Boys For Life directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, who left the project to direct the now-shelved Batgirl. Jerry Bruckheimer is again producing, with him not being involved in the third film.
The Beverly Hills Cop cast originally included Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Paul Reiser and Ronny Cox, all of whom returned for Beverly Hills Cop 2. Of the four, only Judge Reinhold returned for the third film. Bronson Pinchot, who memorably played Serge, the museum gallery worker in the first movie, returned for the third film but sat out the second. It looks like this fourth film in the Beverly Hills Cop franchise is leaning heavily into nostalgia, with Judge Reinhold heading back to the Beverly Hills Police Department to reprise the role of Billy Rosewood, John Ashton returning as his partner, John Taggart, Paul Reiser as Axel’s Detroit partner, Jeffrey Friedman, and Bronson Pinchot returning as Serge. Ronny Cox, so far, seems to be sitting this one out. Despite being eighty-four, Cox is still active, with him having recently appeared in Aaron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos. He also contributed a vocal performance to the animated series Star Trek: Prodigy.
Most of Murphy’s Beverly Hills Cop cast members have stayed busy since the last time they shared the screen with Axel Foley. Reinhold had a supporting role in the Santa Clause franchise and has also been seen in movies like Four Christmases and a Wedding, Bad Grandmas, and the underrated horror film The Hollow. He also reprised the role of Billy Rosewood in an unsuccessful Beverly Hills Cop TV series pilot that Barry Sonnenfeld directed back in 2013 with Brandon T. Jackson taking the lead as Axel’s son Aaron Foley.
Ashton’s recent credits include Death in Texas, American Christmas, My Little Baby, The Last Big Save, and Uncle John. Reiser has been seen on The Boys and multiple episodes of Stranger Things, and got to revive his 1990s sitcom Mad About You (co-starring Helen Hunt) for a new season in 2019. Pinchot’s recent notable credits include episodes of Ray Donovan, A Million Little Things, Lodge 49, and Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.
The only core member from the first film, other than Cox, who’s not returning is Lisa Eilbacher as Axel’s friend Jenny Summers, but she never returned for any of the sequels either. Elibacher seems to have retired way back in 1995, as she has no screen credits since then.
The supporting cast is pretty stacked with an impressive array of names. Rising star Taylour Page plays Axel Foley’s daughter, who, in the trailers, is attacked by a hang of corrupt cops led by Kavin Bacon, who seems to be playing the villain. Seeking revenge and wanting to protect his daughter, after making his way to Beverly Hills, Axel runs afoul of the cop assigned to the case, played by Joseph-Gordon Levitt, although, as the trailer suggests, they eventually put aside their differences and team up to take out the bad guys. The heat is on!
Gordon-Levitt has earned a lot of respect and positive attention for his performances over the years, following his six season, 139 episode run on the sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun with films like Mysterious Skin, The Lookout, 500 Days of Summer, Hesher, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Premium Rush, Looper, Lincoln, Don Jon, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, The Walk, The Night Before, Snowden, The Trail of the Chicago 7, and yes, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Paige made her screen debut as a dancer in 2008’s High School Musical 3, and has since been seen in the likes of Touched, Ballers, Jean of the Joneses, Hit the Floor, White Boy Rick, Zola, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
Kevin Bacon… well, who doesn’t know who he is? He’s the actor who has been so prolific and has been in so many high profile projects, they created the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game to prove any other actor can be linked to him in just six steps. Here’s a fun bit of trivia: in 1984, Bacon starred in the hit film Footloose, which was the seventh highest grossing film to be released that year. The film that sits at #1 on that list: the first Beverly Hills Cop.
Now, this is exciting. According to the IMDB and Wikipedia, none other than Harold Faltermeyer is back to do the score. This is terrific news, as the third film infamously dropped Faltermeyer’s synth to give us a fully orchestral version of Axel F, which fans of the series despised. Faltermeyer also recently contributed to the Top Gun: Maverick score (alongside Hans Zimmer and Lady Gaga).
The Beverly Hills Cop series totally blew up the box office in the eighties. Everyone loved Eddie Murphy’s streetwise Detroit cop, Axel Foley, who made his way to Beverly Hills to investigate his buddy’s murder. Along the way he form an unlikely friendship with some white cops who, initially, arrest him for being thrown out a window, but eventually become his allies and newfound best friends, to the extent that when one of them is shot in the second movie, Axel returns to seek vengeance. The first film made $234 million in North America alone, making it the top-grossing film of 1984 (it beat Ghostbusters). Taken for inflation, that’s about $677 million in 2023 dollars. The sequel, Beverly Hills Cop 2, was another hit for Paramount Pictures (who put out most of Eddie’s 80s movies), making over $153 million domestically. However, the third film was a notorious flop, only earning $42 million. Over the years, there have been numerous efforts made to get Eddie Murphy to reprise the character, with him even showing up in a CBS pilot that focused on the character’s son, who was played by Tropic Thunder’s Brandon T. Jackson, which has never seen the light of day.
Everyone assumed Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F would be R-rated, but you never really can be sure with Eddie. While Murphy certainly hasn’t shied away from R-ratings in recent years, with his other two Netflix movies, You People and the great Dolemite is My Name both being hard-R, over on Prime Video, he’s focused on family fare. His sequel, Coming 2 America, nabbed a PG-13 despite the original being R, something fans weren’t thrilled about. It seems like Eddie listened to them, with a new promo spot for the movie showing him dropping enough F-bombs to guarantee this is going out with an R-rating. Then the Motion Picture Association ratings board officially announced that they have given the film an R rating for language throughout, violence and brief drug use.
Word on the street is that this film is supposedly testing through the roof, so Netflix did the smart thing and gave it a big summer 2024 release. Indeed, the movie is set to officially bow on July 3rd, 2024 on the streamer.
Are you excited for Beverly Hills Cop 4? Let us know in the comments!