For a long time, Eddie Murphy has been working on returning to the role of Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop IV, and now the project has a new director.
Deadline Hollywood reports that Mark Molloy has replaced Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. The pair behind Bad Boys for Life were previously set to direct the movie prior to boarding the upcoming Batgirl for HBO Max. This will be Molloy’s first movie for a major studio. The fourth installment has been in development for decades, and, at one point, Brett Ratner was set to direct. It finally landed at Netflix in 2019, but no production date has been set yet.
At one point, the movie would’ve taken place far from the California sun and Hollywood stars. Years ago, screenwriters Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec would have taken Foley away from a cushy life as a detective in Beverly Hills and back to Detroit during one of the coldest winters ever. It’s not clear if that’s still the plan, though.
Netflix did not comment to Deadline Hollywood about the new hire for the Bruckheimer-produced project. Murphy has said he will not make the movie until the script is right, but has been invested in returning to it for a number of years, saying he does not want to do a terrible movie just to make money.