We haven’t seen a new installment in the Beverly Hills Cop franchise for 27 years, but Eddie Murphy’s fourth outing as Axel Foley has been stuck in development hell for almost that entire time. The latest version has been in the works for over five years already, but it just took a big step towards finally getting into production at long last.
Beverly Hills Cop 4 has been awarded over $15 million in tax credits to shoot in California, which means that the team behind the project are clearly confident that locking in a start date for production isn’t too far away. Murphy revealed earlier this year that he won’t be making the movie until he feels the script is in good enough shape, so perhaps the latest draft was to his satisfaction.
Directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah first signed on to helm Beverly Hills Cop 4 in June 2016, long before they rejuvenated another tired action franchise with Bad Boys for Life, but last year’s box office smash hit was an impressive calling card that proved they could handle the job, although the duo are currently gearing up to tackle HBO Max’s Batgirl, which is expected to kick off before the end of 2021.
Paramount agreed to license Beverly Hills Cop 4 out to Netflix without giving over complete control of the property, and now would be the ideal time for things to gather momentum when the project has a pair of fast-rising filmmakers attached behind the camera, as well as a leading man in the nascent stages of a full-blown comeback following the critical acclaim that greeted Dolemite Is My Name and the massive number of Amazon viewers that checked out Coming 2 America.