Netflix to air Beverly Hills Cop 4.
Riding high on the comeback trail with his lead role in Dolomite Is My Name, Eddie Murphy is back for more than just one final hurrah it would seem with the actor currently filming the sequel to his 1988 hit comedy Coming To America, Variety now brings us the news of the return of perhaps Murphy’s most iconic role.
Bolstered by the success of Dolomite, Netflix is keen to keep their Murphy relationship going strong as they have acquired the distribution rights to Beverly Hills Cop 4 from Paramount Pictures. The deal includes the rights to the franchise and characters, which could also mean that we could see the return of Judge Reinhold as Billy Rosewood, although plot details haven’t been confirmed as of yet.
But the deal itself is confirmed with CEO of Paramount’s parent company Viacom, Bob Bakish announcing the Beverly Hills Cop 4 news during an analysts call on Thursday. Paramount had previously alluded to wanting to bring Axel Foley back for a fourth film in the franchise, which had seemingly gone off the rails after the critical mauling the third film in the series suffered after it’s release in 1994.
The studio had even previously toyed with the idea of a spinoff TV series, centred around Foley’s son, with Murphy featuring as a recurring guest star. The idea even went as far as getting an (unaired) pilot in which Murphy starred alongside Brandon T. Jackson as Aaron Foley, but now it appears that the TV idea has taken a backseat to Axel Foley returning in a fourth feature length adventure, with Jerry Bruckheimer, who was behind the original trilogy, also said to be back on board as producer.
Recently it had also been rumoured that Murphy would be retiring from acting altogether to return to his standup roots and there was also talk of Netflix looking to broker a deal for a series of stand-up specials starting in 2020, although that is yet to be confirmed and with Murphy even getting Oscar buzz for his portrayal of comedian and filmmaker Rudy Ray Moore, Murphy may decide to stick around the movie scene a little longer.