Judge Reinhold is going four strong in the Beverly Hills Cop franchise, and when we caught up with him last Thursday, regaled us with memories of what the project was like before Eddie Murphy arrived.
Specifically, Reinhold had already signed on to the original Beverly Hills Cop as Detective Billy Rosewood when the Jerry Bruckheimer production had Sylvester Stallone attached.
“We weren’t a comedy when we started, it was an action movie for Sylvester Stallone,” Reinhold told Deadline at the world premiere of Netflix’s Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F in Beverly Hills, CA.
He continues, “I was cast then Stallone dropped out to do Cobra, so, I was in a movie with no star, then Eddie came on.”
“We weren’t a comedy, we weren’t. Eddie was fine flying by the seat of his pants, that’s not problem for him, but it was nerve-wracking for us,” Reinhold talks about his on-set experience with John Ashton who played his straight-laced partner, Detective John Taggart.
Brought on to spruce up the comedy was screenwriter Sam Simon, who went on to be a showrunner of several hundred episodes for Fox’s The Simpsons.
However, Beverly Hills Cop filmmaker Martin Brest gave Reinhold and Ashton complete improv freedom to keep up with the Saturday Night Live alum.
Says Reinhold, “All the scenes of John and I in the unmarked car on stakeout, Marty Brest the original director just gave us free reign.”
“We shot a lot of film, that was expensive then.”
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F drops on Netflix on July 3.
