Eddie Murphy explains why Beverly Hills Cop 4 took 30 years to happen

George Lewis

June 27, 2024 at 7:32 p.m.·2 min read

Eddie Murphy has explained why Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, the fourth film in the franchise, took 30 years to materialise.

The upcoming film sees Murphy reprise his role as the iconic wise-cracking police officer, with his latest adventure seeing him return to Los Angeles as he teams up with his estranged daughter, Jane (Taylour Paige), to solve a vast conspiracy.

john ashton, eddie murphy, judge reinhold, beverly hills cop axel f — Netflix

The upcoming film endured an elongated production cycle after initially being conceived in the immediate aftermath of 1994’s Beverly Hills Cop III, with Murphy explaining to ScreenRant why the latest installment took so long to get off the ground.

“The reason why the movie didn't come together for years and years and years is because, in all the scripts that I read, there was no evolution,” he began. “It was just, ‘Axel's coming back now, and he's on a new mission.’ It was like, ‘Okay, now this has happened.’

“It was just the generic things. ‘This happens, and that happens, then this happens, and that happens.’ And nothing worked. Then once they added the element where Axel was married and he's not with his wife anymore, and they have a child and he's estranged from his child, and he's still in this job and all of his contemporaries are leaving...

eddie murphy, beverley hills cop axel foley — Netflix

“All he's got is his job, and he's got this horrible relationship. And the reason Axel's back in Beverly Hills on the surface is cops and robbers, but behind the scenes, it's really to reconcile with his daughter and all that stuff. Once we added that element, then we had a movie.”

Murphy isn’t the only returning cast member for the feature, with Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Paul Reiser and Bronson Pinchot all reprising their roles; new cast members, in addition to Paige, include Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Kevin Bacon.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is released on Paramount+ on July 3.

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