According to various sources, Paramount Pictures plans to release a new Beverly Hills Cop film on March 25, 2016, with Eddie Murphy attached to reprise the beloved, “smart-mouthed” detective Axel Foley.
According to Deadline, despite the fact CBS passed on the Beverly Hills Cop television series starring Brandon T. Jackson as Foley’s son, Eddie Murphy’s “scene-stealing turn” in the pilot episode helped convince Paramount Pictures to reboot the film franchise.
Though little else is known besides the identities behind creative team, expectations for the new film may fair negative or positive, depending on perspective. Given the last film of the series Beverly Hills Cop III was a critical flop in 1994 (it earned Razzie Nominations for Worst Remake/Sequel and Worst Director for John Landis), a reboot actually seems like a good idea.
And perhaps it will good be for Eddie Murphy’s career, as well: as of late, Murphy’s last few films (A Thousand Words, Meet Dave, and Imagine That) were commercial and critical flops, with only Tower Heist – directed by Brett Ratner -being a slight glimmering outlier. Ratner (Rush Hour series, X-Men: The Last Stand) himself is attached to direct, while Jerry Bruckheimer (The Lone Ranger, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice), the producer of the original Beverly Hills Cop, will continue his tenure with the new film.
Given the relative success of Tower Heist and the seemingly strong partnership between Murphy and Ratner (Murphy resigned as the host of the 84th annual Academy Awards after Ratner left as the show’s creative producer), perhaps their reteaming will work wonders. Though Bruckheimer has a good track record of financially successful films (Pirates of the Caribbean series, Armageddon), according to Rotten Tomatoes he hasn’t produced a “fresh” film since The Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl back in 2003. But the screenwriting duo of André Nemec and Josh Applebaum seems promising: they wrote Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, which was the most critically successful of that movie series.
It’s too early to make definitive judgments, but the new film is certainly on our radar. Our expectations aside, we’ll at least be hoping for the best for the filmmakers and the fans.
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