Legacyquels come when you least expect them, and one of the most surprising examples of such a phenomenon is the highly anticipated Eddie Murphy follow-up, Coming 2 America. But if you thought the Murphy magic was going to stop there, you’re totally wrong, as the comic legend is apparently working on making Beverly Hills Cop 4 finally happen.
You read that right, Axel Foley might be heading back to a theater near you not too long after Coming 2 America is in the can. That announcement came from Eddie Murphy himself, as he laid out his future plans below in a recent interview:
Yeah that’s what we’re doing after Coming to America 2. We’re doing Beverly Hills Cop and then the plan is to get back on stage and do stand-up. That’s what I’ll be doing mostly is standup. These movies and Saturday Night Live it’s kind of like… I’m looking at it as a bookend. If I decided I wanted to stay on the couch forever, I ended it on a funny note.
Forgive us for falling into a chair in shock, as it feels like a lot of long abandoned legacyquels (including Kevin Smith’s Clerks III) seem to be reviving themselves at an alarming rate. In fact, the last we’d heard from the Beverly Hills Cop franchise was that Bad Boys For Life directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah were possibly going to direct Beverly Hills Cop 4 back in 2017.
Those were the most promising signs of life after the pilot to a proposed CBS show starring Brandon T. Jackson as Axel’s son, Aaron, flamed out in spectacular fashion. So between a vague promise of a sequel, and a TV show that was shelved faster than you could stuff a banana in a car’s tailpipe, the Beverly Hills Cop franchise stalled out.
A bit part of that stalling was, of course, courtesy of Eddie Murphy himself. Stating numerous times that he would only do a Beverly Hills Cop 4 if the script was absolutely right for the project, it looked like the day would never come that saw Axel Foley cracking another case. And yet, the remarks above, provided to Collider, certainly explain why Eddie Murphy seems to be ready to slip on the jacket yet again, yukking it up while piecing together clues.
It’s certainly the right time for Murphy to be cashing in, as he’s having a renaissance at the moment, thanks to the Craig Brewer directed film Dolemite Is My Name. A biopic on the famed blaxploitation film star Rudy Ray Moore, Murphy’s performance as Moore is part of how the film has been building a strong buzz in advance of its limited theatrical release this weekend.
On top of those efforts, Brewer must have made an impression on Eddie Murphy during that film, as the director followed him and Dolemite Is My Name co-star Wesley Snipes to the now in production Coming 2 America. His career engines fully revved, it sounds like Murphy is about to embark on a comeback tour that’ll wow fans old and new, and Beverly Hills Cop 4 is another promising sign of such prospects.
You won’t have to wait too long to see the kickoff of the Eddie Murphy renaissance, as Dolemite Is My Name will be in limited theatrical release on Friday, with Netflix adding the studio’s film to its streaming library on October 25. After which, you’ll next see Eddie Murphy in Coming 2 America, which will debut in theaters on December 18, 2020.
