Beverly Hill Cop 4: Mark Molloy to Direct Eddie Murphy in Long-Gestating Sequel

Eddie Murphy in 1984's 'Beverly Hills Cop.'

The idea of a fourth 'Beverly Hills Cop' movie has been floating around Hollywood for years now.

This was a big ‘80s franchise that hadn’t yet seen a new installment, and multiple filmmakers have tried to get it made, to no avail.

But current home Netflix is looking to change all that, hiring up-and-coming director Mark Malloy to handle the movie, which will see Eddie Murphy return as wise-cracking Detroit cop who has to find his feet among the swanky streets of one of Los Angeles’ most famous districts.

Molloy will make his feature debut with the action-comedy, having established a successful career as a commercials director for companies including Nissan and Apple.

Netflix is saying nothing about the new movie, news of which comes via a report from Deadline. We can guess, though, that a slightly more experienced Foley will still be making jokes as he solves crimes in Beverly Hills.

The fourth movie is something that originated back in the 1990s when Murphy set up a version at original studio home Paramount via his production company. It never got past the development stage but pinged the radar again in 2006 when Jerry Bruckheimer – who produced the first three – announced that he was trying to get the fourth made.

Fellow super-producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura stepped in after that, and the project went through a variety of script re-writes, including work from Michael Brandt and Derek Haas.

Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley in 1994's 'Beverly Hills Cop III.'

Yet nothing seemed to be solved on the writing side, and in 2011, the announcement came that the movie was being thrust back into development jail in favor of a spin-off TV series for CBS that would have seen ‘Percy Jackson’ actor Brandon T. Jackson play Axel Foley’s son, Aaron.

‘The Shield’s Shawn Ryan came aboard to produce the show, which cast Kevin Pollak and David Denman, with Barry Sonnenfeld agreeing to direct the pilot.

Sadly, for the small screen version, CBS passed on the pilot, and it returned to the ether.

After that flame-out, Paramount pushed ahead with the movie again, bringing Brett Ratner in and having Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec write a new script draft. Though it got as close as securing tax credits for shooting in Detroit and landing a March 25, 2016, release date, it was shut down because of script concerns and Ratner left it like a sinking ship.

But Paramount remained committed, hiring ‘Bad Boys for Life’ co-directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (though this was on the back of their indie movie work and before they made the latest ‘Bad Boys’), pushing the movie back into pre-production.

Murphy announced that the movie would shoot once he finished work on ‘Coming 2 America’, but it never materialized.

In 2019, Paramount licensed the movie to Netflix, intending to have the streaming service make the fourth and a potential fifth entry. El Arbi and Fallah left post-‘Bad Boys’ to focus on ‘Batgirl’ and the potential movie sat on the shelf once more.

Now, though, with Molloy aboard, the movie is back in development, though there’s no production start date on the books yet. At this point, we’re looking at an Axel Foley who stuffs bags of Werther’s Originals in tailpipes rather than bananas…