How to make a new “Beverly Hills Cop” movie? It’s a question that has long vexed Hollywood. Brett Ratner tried for years to crack the case, though, judging from a 2010 Empire magazine interview, it’s fair to wonder how much progress he ever made. “Like, where do we start?” he wondered.
Like, where, indeed? Among the obstacles puzzling those who attempted to revive the franchise: Is Axel retired? Is he in Beverly Hills? Is he on vacation? Does Judge Reinhold reprise his role as Billy Rosewood? In hindsight, this all seems unnecessarily complicated. From the moment the Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer Films lightning bolt logo comes on the screen in Netflix’s “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F” (streaming July 3), followed by the wailing sax riff of “The Heat Is On,” you realize that everyone involved understood the assignment. The solution to creating a new “Beverly Hills Cop” movie was to simply make the first one all over again.
“Beverly Hills Cop” came out 40 years ago, an anniversary that will alarm the segment of moviegoers who remember seeing it in theaters, and perhaps astound some just now realizing that Murphy was only 23 when he made it. The movie topped the box office 13 weeks running, selling 67 million tickets and, adjusted for inflation, still stands as the highest-grossing R-rated film of all-time. Coming on the heels of his work on “Saturday Night Live,” “48 Hrs.
” and “Trading Places,” it certified Murphy as a movie star. You had .
