Thirty years after Beverly Hills Cop III and 40 years after the franchise made its debut, Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold and John Ashton are back for a fourth film.
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F sees Murphy’s Detective Axel Foley return to Beverly Hills after his daughter’s (played by Taylour Paige) life is threatened, teaming up with her ex-boyfriend (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his old pals John Taggart (Ashton) and Billy Rosewood (Reinhold).
A fourth film has been in development on and off for decades, but it was never the right script. Reinhold said that when Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced the first two films, got involved, he felt like the movie may actually happen this time.
“We wanted to use the first one as a template, to be so lucky to reach that level, so that’s what we were after,” Reinhold told The Hollywood Reporter at the film’s Beverly Hills premiere on Thursday. “The night that all three of us were in the unmarked car [in the new movie] was the first time we’d seen each other in years. We were two blocks from the original location downtown, the original one in 1984, and the chemistry between the three of us was just wild. It’s like we picked up where we left off.”
He added that the original group of actors — which also includes returning stars Paul Reiser and Bronson Pinchot — have kept in touch throughout the years, and he has remained particularly close to Murphy.
“Eddie probably wouldn’t want anybody to know this but he’s an avid duck hunter, we go duck hunting every year up in Minnesota,” Reinhold revealed, joking, “He’s got a lot of stuffed ducks that he’s not allowed to keep around the house. He has a duck room.”
Bronson Pinchot, Judge Reinhold, Eddie Murphy, John Ashton and Paul Reiser
John Sciulli/Getty Images for Netflix
Throughout the film’s press tour, Murphy has admitted that he noticed the difference in doing an action movie in his 60s versus in his 20s when the franchise began, but director Mark Molloy teased that his approach was, “I just pretended like he was 25 and made him do it.”
The director continued that the star has said “that I nearly killed him, but I just wanted to do everything in camera, all the action in camera, so that meant asking Eddie to do a lot of things he didn’t want to do, but he did it. He was game, he was always like, ‘Hey man, just remember my age.’”
Gordon-Levitt and Kevin Bacon are among the film’s two new additions, and both sang the praises of Murphy’s improvisational style.
“The script was great, but he’s making stuff up all the time and I love just throwing it back to him,” Gordon-Levitt said at the premiere, as Bacon added, “I’m not an improv-er, I’m not a comic genius like Eddie is, but I really like the fact that it keeps me on my toes when he is very relaxed, very present. When you’re improv-ing, if you’re a good improv-er, I think, you have to listen and watch and see what the other person is doing. I have to do that now because I know anything is going to come at me, so that’s cool, man, I like that.”
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F starts streaming on Netflix on July 3.
