Eddie Murphy has been speaking to Playboy about his forthcoming return to the part of Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop 4, describing the previous entry into the series as “garbage” in the process.
“I don’t think it’s gonna happen in March,” says Murphy, “but it is gonna be in Detroit. And before it happens, they’ve got to get that script right. That movie has to be right. The third Beverly Hills Cop was garbage.”
“Those movies, when I travel overseas, people say, ‘Hey, Beverly Hills Cop! Axel Foley!’ They call me that shit. All the movies I’ve done, and they call me that. If we do that movie, it has to be right. Not just thrown together to get a big check. I don’t need any more of those.”
Murphy also goes on to explain what happened to the proposed Beverly Hills Cop TV show, suggesting that it was his popularity that ensured the project moved from small screen to silver…
“I was gonna be in the pilot,” he explains, “and they thought I should be recurring. I’m not gonna do Beverly Hills Cop on TV. I remember when they tested it - they had this little knob that you turn if you like it or you don’t like it. So when Axel shows up in the pilot, some people turned the knob so much, they broke it.”
“So the network decided, ‘if he isn’t recurring, then this isn’t gonna happen.’ So it didn’t happen… I just remember seeing it in the editing room. I remember this executive, when we were doing some promo stuff; he came in and said 'Hey, can you do the laugh and then say ‘I’m back?’’”
“I said, ‘That’s a horrible idea. They’ll think I’ve lost my mind! Eddie Murphy done gone crazy. He’s done that stupid laugh again and said he’s back.’”
Sounds like a dodged bullet to us… Beverly Hills Cop 4 is slated to open in the UK on 23 March 2016, and two days later in the US.
