After many years without clarity regarding its future, Beverly Hills Cop 4 is truly happening. Being produced by Netflix with the title Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley, the movie actually went into production last month – and the start of filming came with the news that Eddie Murphy would be joined in the cast by franchise newcomers Taylour Paige and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Those are some exciting names, but part of the legacyquel trend is to include a significant number of actors from the original franchise, and this upcoming project is not disappointing. Variety is now reporting that four more actors from the original Beverly Hills Cop have signed on for the new movie – specifically Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Paul Reiser and Bronson Pinchot.
All of the actors were in the 1984 original and at least one of the previous sequels, with Reinhold being the only one other than Eddie Murphy to appear in every installment of the cop-centric comedy series. The Fast Times At Ridgemont High star will be reprising his role as Billy Rosewood, while Ashton, Pinchot, and Reiser will respectively be playing Sgt. John Taggart, art gallery salesman Serge, and Axel's former Detroit partner Jeffrey Friedman.
This will actually be the second time that Judge Reinhold and Bronson Pinchot will be be bringing back their characters in recent years. Back in 2013 both of them were also part of the Beverly Hills Cop TV reboot that was developed by The Shield creator Shawn Ryan. A pilot was produced featuring Eddie Murphy's Axel Foley ostensibly handing the franchise reins to his son, Brandon T. Jackson's Aaron Foley, but the series was not picked up.
Netflix acquired the rights to Beverly Hills Cop in 2019 (the year that saw the release of the Eddie Murphy hit Dolemite Is My Name), and the streaming service has been trying to get the fourth installment in the series off the ground since. Filmmaker Mark Molloy will be making his feature directorial debut with Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley, working with a screenplay by Josh Appelbaum, Will Beall, and André Nemec.
At present there aren't any plot details known about Beverly Hills Cop 4, but this news certainly raises curiosity about the story. A make-or-break aspect of legacyquels is the ability for a project to naturally and organically bring back characters without making the whole enterprise feel forced, and that's not necessarily an easy task. How this developing project will go about it is unclear, and it will be interesting to see what approach the movie takes.
Release date plans have not yet been announced for Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley, but that's hardly a surprise for an upcoming Netflix movie. That being said, with production already started, it seems all but guaranteed that the film will come out some time in 2023.
Check out our 2023 Movie Release Calendar to discover all of the films – both theatrical and streaming – that are scheduled to be released in the next calendar year.
