Well it’s taken six months, but the trades have finally confirmed the story we brought you back in May here. Eddie Murphy really will return for a fourth Beverly Hills Cop movie.

Variety has the latest on the new Lorenzo di Bonaventura producing project. Eddie is still attached to return as Axel Foley, and he’ll have a say in how Paramount and di Bonaventura make it. Di Bonaventura says, “Axel Foley is one of the great action-comedy characters, a character that Eddie loves. I'm lucky enough to help bring it back. This genre is missing from the landscape.”

He’s right. Comedic cop movies have all but vanished in recent years. Unless of course you count Showtime, I Spy, Miss Congeniality, The Man, Rush Hour, Bad Boys, and the dozens of others I’m probably forgetting. Maybe he meant to say that good entries from the genre are missing. On that, he’d be right.

I’m actually looking forward to a Beverly Hills Cop return. Some have given up on Eddie, but he’s great in Dreamgirls and I think the guy still has something left in him. He’s not Chevy Chase. He’s done funny voice work, he’s just has a problem whenever he shows his face.

That said, Murphy is in currently post-production on his new movie Norbit; a film which may well rival Pluto Nash as his worst ever work. After that he’ll return to being funny as the voice of Donkey in Shrek the Third, and he’s soon to start work on Starship Dave, an untitled Brett Ratner movie, and an Eddie Murphy re-enactment of Romeo and Juliet. Now add Beverly Hills Cop IV to that list.