'Beverly Hills Cop 4' Will Start Shooting After 'Coming To America 2', According To Eddie Murphy

Eddie Murphy is back. He's earning rave reviews for his work in the crowd-pleasing Dolemite Is My Name, and he's already hard at work on the long-awaited Coming To America 2. But that's not the only classic film he's returning to. According to Murphy, Beverly Hills Cop 4 is going to ramp up production as soon as Coming To America 2 is done. But do audiences want more Axel Foley?

Murphy dropped the Beverly Hills Cop 4 news to Collider, saying:

"Yeah that's what we're doing after Coming to America 2. We're doing Beverly Hills Cop and then the plan is to get back on stage and do standup. That's what I'll be doing mostly is standup. These movies and Saturday Night Live it's kind of like...I'm looking at it as a bookend. If I decided I wanted to stay on the couch forever, I ended it on a funny note."

Beverly Hills Cop 4 has been knocking around since the mid-90s, when it was first announced with Murphy producing. But after Beverly Hills Cop 3 in 1994, the project evaporated. In 2006, producer Jerry Bruckheimer revealed he planned to get the film off the ground after all, but then went on to sell the project to producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura. By then there was already a script in place, and by 2008, Brett Ratner was hired to direct. But that version of the movie also failed to materialize. In 2011, Murphy revealed a TV spin-off was in the works. The show would focus on the son of his character, Axel Foley, with Axel now serving as the chief of police. The project was set-up at CBS, but the network decided to pass on it. Since then, a potential Beverly Hills Cop 4 has gone through fits and starts. But now, with Murphy's career back on track, it looks like it might finally happen.

Released in 1984, the original Beverly Hills Cop was supposed to star Sylvester Stallone. But Stallone didn't like the comedy in the script and decided to remove it and turn the project into a straightforward action movie. When that didn't work out, Stallone walked, and turned the serious script into the gloriously trashy action film Cobra.

Murphy, who was still relatively new to his film career at the time, took over the lead role in Beverly Hills Cop, and the film, along with 48 Hours and Trading Places, helped turn him into an international movie star. Murphy played Axel Foley, a Detroit cop who heads to posh Beverly Hills during the course of a murder investigation. It was followed by Beverly Hills Cop 2 in 1987, and Beverly Hills Cop 3 in 1994.

I honestly don't know what else the Beverly Hills Cop franchise can offer at this point, but after seeing Dolemite Is My Name, I'm just happy to have Murphy back in adult-oriented films again.