For a long time, the idea of a new Beverly Hills Cop film – either the fourth or a reboot, for those keeping score at home – floated around merely as a rumour. Then word broke that Brett Ratner was aiming to make a PG-13 “revitalisation” of the franchise, which led to a minor uproar, before he walked those comments back hastily. Then there was talk of a TV pilot, but now it would seem Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley is back on track for the big screen.
It’s been a bit of a whiplash time for the street-wise-cracking Detroit cop, who for a while was destined for the small screen with The Shield’s Shawn Ryan, who cooked up an idea for a show with Murphy that had Brandon T. Jackson as Axel’s son and the elder Foley as a senior police officer overseeing his sprog’s career.
That never made it past the pilot stage, and while Ryan tried to sell it elsewhere, it would appear that the TV idea is now dead in the water. Still, the added heat means that Paramount is once more interested in kicking the film’s development up a gear, with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol's Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec hired to write a new draft focusing on Murphy.
Whether Jackson’s character will survive the transition remains a mystery, and there’s no director attached right now. We suppose there’s a chance Ratner could come back once he’s finished with Hercules, but nothing has been decided yet. Either way, though, Axel Foley is one tough nut to crack, but an even harder man to kill…