It was last October when we reported that Eddie Murphy had pretty much buried the idea of a 4th Beverly Hills Cop movie, when he told Rolling Stone magazine in an interview that "none of the movie scripts were right; it was trying to force the premise. If you have to force something, you shouldn't be doing it. It was always a rehash of the old thing. It was always wrong."

In that same conversation, Eddie did add that, while a movie was highly unlikely, a TV show was a possibility, stating "what I'm trying to do now is produce a TV show starring Axel Foley's son, and Axel is the chief of police now in Detroit. I'd do the pilot, show up here and there…" 

Skip ahead some 10 months later to a New York magazine/Vulture report this evening, stating that the idea for a Beverly Hills Cop TV series is now a definite reality.

The report says that Murphy has teamed up with Shawn Ryan (creator of The Shield, as well as the upcoming The Last Resort) and Sony Pictures Television, to produce a small screen version of the film franchise, as a serial, and that the idea was being pitched to a number of TV networks this very afternoon.

A question is whether the idea they're pitching is the same one that Eddie mentioned in the Rolling Stone interview last year.

But Vulture was able to confirm that it'll be "a buddy cop show… an hourlong crime procedural with strong comedic elements," and that Eddie would appear in the pilot and maybe a few special episodes during the first season; but he wouldn't be the star.

Given the parties involved, notably Eddie, Shawn Ryan, the Beverly Hills Cop franchise itself, I'd like to think that this wouldn't be a hard sell to networks. I'd imagine one of them would be willing to take a chance on whatever these guys are selling.

The 3 films in the film franchise (which started out strong, but got successively worse) grossed over $735 million worldwide, and the first film was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 1985. It was also Murphy's first full-fledged starring vehicle.