Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Actor Eddie Murphy has been talking up Beverly Hills Cop 4 for years now, but looks like the 51-year-old might skip the big-screen entirely and take the popular police comedy to TV.
Murphy has teamed up with Shawn Ryan, the creator of the hit TV series The Shield, and Sony Pictures Television for the adaptation of the franchise that started in 1984, to executive produce a pilot episode for the CBS network.
Murphy is also attached to an on-camera role reprising his character as the wisecracking Detroit police officer Axel Foley and may guest star on future episodes if the pilot goes to series.
The series will centre on Axel Foley’s son Aaron, a blue-collar police officer who serves in glamorous Beverly Hills while trying to get out from under his father’s reputation.
Vulture reported that the new Beverly Hills Cop would be ‘an hour-long crime procedural with strong comedic elements’, with the feel of a ‘a buddy cop show’. Deadline further added that the clash between Aaron’s working-class roots and his wealthy, glam work environment would provide a ‘fish-out-of-water setup’ similar to the one from the original movies.
In October, director Brett Ratner who worked with Murphy on the movie Heist, said the pair were hoping to get a fourth film made in the franchise. However, at the same time, Murphy told Rolling Stone magazine that the idea was dead in the water because the script was just not right.
Murphy said: “What I’m trying to do now is produce a TV show starring Axel Foley’s son, and Axel is the chief of police now in Detroit ... I’d do the pilot, show up here and there.”
