Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley — Cast, Director And More Info

When we last hung out with Eddie Murphy's Axel Foley, he was wreaking havoc at a fictional Southern California amusement park (clearly based on Disneyland) while trying to apprehend the facility's chief of security, who murdered Foley's ill-tempered mentor, Inspector Todd (Gil Hill). If you're saying, "Uh, no, he was chasing the Eurotrash criminals who shot up his buddy Chief Bogomil (Ronny Cox)," you are one of the vast majority of moviegoers who skipped John Landis' "Beverly Hills Cop III."

Released over Memorial Day weekend in 1994, Murphy's third go-round as the fast-talking Detroit detective who keeps making unwelcome visits to Los Angeles to avenge dead or badly wounded friends arrived seven years after the last installment, and audiences had moved on. Whereas the first two movies grossed $316 million and $300 million worldwide (the bulk of that money being made in the U.S.), "Beverly Hills Cop III" only made $119 million (including a paltry $43 million domestically). These movies were never hugely popular with critics, but the third one got shredded. Murphy, once the most electric comedic performer on the planet, was curiously low-energy and wholly uninspired. He gets a few decent riffs off, but mostly he seems content to stick to the script, hit his marks, and cash his $15 million paycheck (making matters worse, with a budget of $50 million, this was by far the most expensive film of the franchise).

Since his acclaimed turn as Rudy Ray Moore in 2019's "Dolemite Is My Name" (and triumphant return to "Saturday Night Live"), we've been in a bit of a nostalgia-driven Eddie Murphy renaissance. He returned to the role of Prince Akeem two years ago in the depressingly flat "Coming 2 America," and, next year, he'll once again rile the LAPD in "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley." What should we expect?

Eddie Murphy's fourth adventure as Foley is currently slated for a TBD release in 2024 on Netflix. At present, there are no plans for a theatrical release, which is a bummer because one of the great joys of watching Murphy when he's cooking is listening to a packed theater roar with laughter. I was 10 years old when my uncle took me to see "Beverly Hills Cop" at Bowling Green, Ohio's Cinema 1&2 (which now houses the city's DMV), and it felt like the moviegoing equivalent of seeing Elvis Presley in his prime (which would please the star, who is an avowed Elvis fan).

I haven't seen Murphy slay theatrically in a straight-up comedy since Frank Oz's "Bowfinger" in 1999. That ain't right.

Pretty sparse. Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced the first two movies, let slip the vaguest of details recently in a chat with Empire. Evidently, the plot involves Foley getting drawn into a Southern California investigation by his estranged criminal defense attorney daughter (Taylour Paige). This will apparently place him in conflict with an LAPD special-unit officer (Kevin Bacon), and pair him with yet another straitlaced Beverly Hills detective (Joseph Gordon-Levitt).

Given that the perpetrators of the crimes in the previous movies all ended up quite dead, perhaps there's a chance for a bad guy seeking revenge on Foley (à la Jeremy Irons' Simon Peter Gruber toying with Bruce Willis' John McClane in "Die Hard with a Vengeance"). Or maybe Foley will lock horns with an over-militarized police department that brazenly violates the civil rights of its citizens. Considering Foley's daughter's profession, the latter could be in play (though the previous entries in this franchise have been fiercely apolitical).

Eddie! Eddie! Eddie!

We know roughly how series newcomers Taylour Paige, Kevin Bacon and Joseph Gordon-Levitt fit into the narrative, but we've yet to learn "Supernatural" star Mark Pellegrino's plot function.

For those hoping "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley" will check in on our favorite characters from the prior entries, you're in luck. Judge Reinhold and John Ashton (who wisely sat out "Beverly Hills Cop III") will reprise their roles as quarrelsome LAPD partners Billy Rosewood and John Taggart. I'm not sure how to feel about Bronson Pinchot's art gallery salesman Serge getting shoehorned back into the franchise; he'd made a career transition to arms dealer in "Beverly Hills Cop III," and his big scene stopped the film dead in its tracks. There's no reason for Foley to have any kind of encounter with Serge unless he's gone back to work with the detective's pal Jenny Summers (Lisa Eilbacher), but Eilbacher's been retired from acting for almost 30 years, so it's highly unlikely she'll pop back in for a cameo.

I am, however, happy that the great Paul Reiser will once again pester Foley as high-strung Detroit cop Jeffrey "This is not my locker" Friedman. The only other character I'd like to see again is Ronny Cox's Bogomil. The 85-year-old actor recently appeared in Aaron Sorkin's "Being the Ricardos," so it's not out of the question.

One of the key reasons the first "Beverly Hills Cop" movie clicked was the hiring of director Martin Brest. After the success of the offbeat old-guys-rob-a-bank comedy "Going in Style," Brest was one hit away from Hollywood's A-list. That hit could've been "WarGames," but he was fired early on in principal photography. Now, he was one misfire away from Director Jail.

When Brest joined "Beverly Hills Cop," the project had morphed from a dead-serious Sylvester Stallone action flick to a comedy-tinged Eddie Murphy vehicle. In 1984, Murphy would've killed with just about anyone behind the camera, but Brest's gift for teasing out character quirks imbued the film with a warm, shaggy texture. Watching Foley charm the pants off Rosewood, Taggart, Summers, and Bogomil endeared us to a protagonist who could've easily come off as a grandstanding jerk.

Tony Scott's "Beverly Hills Cop II" basically thrust these characters into an MTV video, but his underrated facility for directing actors carried the day. As for John Landis and "Beverly Hills Cop III," he at least found obligatory cameos for his director buddies (including George Lucas).

Australian commercial director Mark Molloy is making his feature filmmaking debut with "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley." Scott also came from commercials, but he was coming off a little movie called "Top Gun" when he made "Beverly Hills Cop II." Mollow has shot some striking ads, but, as an action-comedy helmer, he's a completely unknown quantity. We'll just have to wait and see.

Final credits have yet to be determined, but IMDb currently lists Eddie Murphy, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Chad Oman as the producers of "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley." Bruckheimer is obviously one of the most successful producers in the history of movies, and recently made a global box office killing with the nostalgia-laced "Top Gun: Maverick." He took a powder on "Beverly Hills Cop III," and, in terms of the set pieces, his absence showed (Bruckheimer movies burst with muscular action, whereas Landis prefers exaggerated, occasionally cartoonish moments). Oman is a longtime Bruckheimer collaborator.

Los Angeles cop-turned-screenwriter Will Beall concocted the story for "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley," and, WGA arbitration pending, appears poised to secure a "written by" credit. He was a go-to scribe for Warner Bros. in the 2010s with his ballyhooed screenplay for Ruben Fleischer's (ultimately mediocre) "Gangster Squad" and contributions to DC Extended Universe tentpoles like "Aquaman" and "Zack Snyder's Justice League." He's never been involved in a better-than-average movie, but his law enforcement background might be spot-on for this project.

Also in the mix is the writing team of Kevin Etten and Tom Gormican, who scored a minor hit with the meta, Nicolas Cage-starring goof "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent." And while they probably won't receive credit, I can't imagine Murphy didn't employ the joke-writing expertise of Barry Blaustein and David Sheffield, who've basically been his ride-or-die consultants since he took the country by storm as a teenager on "Saturday Night Live" in the early 1980s.

Nope! There is, however, an official still, which Netflix gave to our friends at Empire (noted in case you suffer from the crippling condition known as watermark blindness). Love seeing Foley back in his Detroit Lions jacket (and he must be enjoying their magnificent 2023 season), but here's hoping the Mumford Phys Ed Dept t-shirt from the first movie makes a comeback (the Lions jacket didn't appear until "Beverly Hills Cop II").

Given the protagonist's defining penchant for dropping the f-bomb (uttered 60 times throughout the course of the film), if "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley" isn't rated R, you needn't bother watching it.