‘Beverly Hills Cop 4’ Is Finally Happening As Eddie Murphy Nabs Big-Time Directors

Eddie Murphy has had his ups and downs throughout his career with an Academy Award nomination one minute and then Norbit the next. He hasn’t had a ton of work in the past few years, but the 55-year-old actor is far from being done. After being in productive limbo for a very long time, the Beverly Hills Cop franchise is being given new life more than 20 years after the last film. Yes, Beverly Hills Cop 4 is happening and Murphy landed some award-winning directors to help him.

In 2013, Murphy was confirmed for the fourth installment of Beverly Hills Cop, but then it faded away into obscurity. That same year, a TV pilot was pitched to CBS and subsequently rejected by CBS. In 2014, Murphy said that the money was being gathered for the fourth film and a lot of it was already in place, but then all talk died out.

Now, it’s back on and Axel Foley will once again be on the job.

Deadline is reporting that Paramount has found a couple of award-winning directors to take control of the long-time planned Beverly Hills Cop 4 starring Eddie Murphy. It was pulled from the studio schedule last year after director Brett Ratner had a falling out with the studio and left the project.

Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah are now on board to direct Beverly Hills Cop 4, and Paramount has to be thrilled that they have two award-winning directors from TIFF 2015. The duo is known for their crime drama Black which won TIFF’s Discovery Award last year, and that obviously impressed Murphy and Jerry Bruckheimer.

Oddly enough, Bruckheimer was shocked to learn that the Beverly Hills Cop franchise was personally important to them in their careers as filmmakers.

For Murphy and Bruckheimer, it’s an instant win as they have a couple of great directors to take over the making of the film. For Al Arbi and Fallah, they are now on board for a project that will give them a lot of exposure, name credibility, and a much bigger budget than they are used to having.

Throughout the history of the franchise, the films have drastically lost money from one to the next.

Back in 1984, the original Beverly Hills Cop took in $316 million worldwide, and that is incredible for a box office in the ’80s. In 1987, Beverly Hills Cop II snagged $299 million at the worldwide box office which is quite impressive for a sequel.

Move ahead to 1994 and Beverly Hills Cop III accumulated just $119 million worldwide including less than $50 million at the domestic box office. A fourth film in the franchise was talked about in the late ’90s, but that horrible box office performance put that movie out of the picture.

There is no word on when the film is going to start production or possibly hit theaters, but Collider believes that the script from Andre Nemec and Josh Applebaum is still in place. If that is indeed the case, then they could be ahead of the game and possibly get production started a lot sooner than anticipated.

Perhaps the reason it has taken so long for Beverly Hills Cop 4 to get any kind of backing is that many don’t have a lot of faith in the project. Eddie Murphy is not giving up on it, though, and that’s not surprising as Axel Foley is one of the key roles of his career. If he can work with these directors to have this sequel more like the first two films in the franchise and less like the third, then it can and will be successful.

[Image via Paramount Pictures]