People can’t stop raving about Eddie Murphy in Dolemite Is My Name, and for very good reason. It’s one of his finest roles in a long time and one of the year’s most purely enjoyable films. And Netflix is eager to stay in the Eddie Murphy business. How eager? They just snagged the distribution rights to Beverly Hills Cop 4.
The streaming service has thrown some money at Paramount to land distribution of the long-awaited sequel, Beverly Hills Cop 4, which hasn’t even gone into production yet. This is very different than when Netflix took The Cloverfield Paradox and Annihilation off of Paramount’s hands. For one thing, a lot of people are looking forward to seeing Murphy return as fish-out-of-water detective Axel Foley and the film might have made bank at the box office. Then again, Paramount may have seen the returns on Terminator: Dark Fate and decided it’s best to ditch sequels to older franchises.
Included in this deal is an option for Netflix to do a sequel, as well, so if people want it, there will be another. Paramount retains control of the property and the first three movies, which helped establish Murphy as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Murphy has said he plans to shoot Beverly Hills Cop 4 once work is completed on another sequel, Coming 2 America. It’s unclear if directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (Bad Boys 4 Life) are still on board but longtime producer Jerry Bruckheimer definitely is.
