It was in May when we reported that CBS had passed on the Beverly Hills Cop TV series adaptation, which Brandon T. Jackson was to star in as Axel Foley’s (Eddie Murphy’s) son.

I believe many of us foolishly thought the series was a lock for a pick-up, given the brand, and who was involved (notably Shawn Ryan and Eddie Murphy), as well as the fact that there was some serious competition from all 4 major networks for the series last year, with CBS emerging the winner of this new Beverly Hills Cop series.

And it is in part due to that interest in the project from all 4 major networks, that it was also reported that the series wasn’t entirely dead, and there was the possibility that it could end up on another network.

Skip ahead a couple of months to 2 weekends ago, when Ryan, who was to serve as showrunner, if CBS picked it up, posted the following to Twitter:

Sad to report that efforts to land Beverly Hills Cop pilot at another network have failed. This iteration is dead for now. (Cont…)

But then, maybe more interestingly, he added the following:

Good news for fans of franchise is that the pilot tested so well, it has caused Paramount to put another #BHC movie into development.

So, the TV series is dead, but the pilot tested very well that Paramount believes another Beverly Hills Cop movie would be a good idea, and have begun development on one.

As for a 4th Beverly Hills Cop movie. You might remember that, last October, Eddie Murphy had pretty much buried the idea of doing a 4th 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, he was more interested in adapting the movie to TV, as a drama series.

So whether or not he’d be a major part of another movie, or would even appear in one, was a question I had last week, after Shawn Ryan’s tweet.

And the answer to that question is yes, as Deadline now reports that Eddie will indeed return to reprise his role as Axel Foley in a 4th movie. 

No plot details given (although I wonder if the TV series premise will be considered), but writers Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec (whose recent credits include Mission: Impossible–Ghost Protocol and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles remake) have been hired to pen the script. 

No word on when the film can be expected, although, given Eddie’s initial reluctance to make a 4th movie, I’d expect that, unless the script delivered is up to whatever standards he’s set for the writers, this is one that could be in development for a long while. 

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.