Several days ago we discovered the news that Paramount Studios was searching for an Executive Producer to helm the new Eddie Murphy film Beverly Hills Cop 4 and we heard that there were serious conversations with some heavy hitters. Despite what was being reported by Variety yesterday, we hear from our sources that most of the execs being approached by Paramount Studios turned them down.
Then last night a news article was published by Variety stating that Jerry Bruckheimer (Beverly Hills Cop 1&2, Bad Boys franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean franchise) was in talks to come back to the franchise that he launched. It’s a curious news item; so after we did some digging we discovered that Bruckheimer hasn’t even signed on yet but he is in negotiations with Paramount to helm the franchise.
If Bruckheimer does come on board it will be interesting because several of the conversations are that he may make some changes while moving ahead with some of the same ideas from the TV pilot. What those changes will be are still a mystery to us, but if the film moves forward with the premise that Murphy (and then producer Shawn Ryan) had when they tried to revive the franchise for the Beverly Hills Cop pilot (a project Bruckheimer did not want a part in), but CBS passed on, with Brandon T Jackson as Axel Foley’s son and Murphy in as the Police Commissioner it could be a very successful film. After all, the pilot that was filmed for broadcast on CBS this fall was one of the best tested pilots that CBS had this whole season.
We will see. As of this writing we hear that Paramount and Murphy have moved forward with new writers Josh Applebaum and Andre Nemec (of Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol fame) and that they have submitted several script ideas to the studio.
Stay tuned as this story is still developing.
