It only took one person, Jerry Bruckheimer, to convince Eddie Murphy to return for “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F.” However, the comedic legend also mentioned to CBR how he’d only come back to the franchise that helped make him a household name on another condition — there had to be a good script. One would assume that would always need to be the case, but seeing as how the first film is really the only one in the series that could unilaterally be considered “good,” the franchise has definitely been lacking in certain areas. 

Some fans may not know this, but originally, “Beverly Hills Cop” was supposed to be a Sylvester Stallone vehicle whose name was intended to be “Axel Cobretti.” Eddie Murphy got in there, and it became a comedy classic. As he told CBR, “The original ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ script is not written funny. It was a Sylvester Stallone action movie … It’s like, if you give me anything that any action star has, I’m not going to play it like Stallone, I’m not going to play it like Tom Cruise, I’m going to play it like me. So it adds this funny element to it.”

It’s been 30 years between movies, with “Beverly Hills Cop III” being released in 1994. That’s plenty of time to get a good script, and hopefully, it’ll be worth the wait with “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F” coming to Netflix on July 3. Eddie Murphy may not be doing his signature laugh in it, but viewers at home ideally should be laughing their socks off.