Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is here, and Eddie Murphy says that there is a reason why this is now the time for the fourth film in the franchise.

“The third movie was soft, he told Blavity’s Shadow and Act. “So after we did the third one, I was like, ‘I’m not doing another one unless it’s right. Unless everything is on paper and it feels good.’ And I’m always open to doing a sequel to any movie if you can make it make sense to me. So I was open to it, but then the scripts just kept not being right, just not having everything that was supposed to be, and I didn’t want to make another mediocre one. So we just waited and waited. And it took 30 years to get it right.”

A key theme in this film is fatherhood, and the element of Axel Foley reconciling with his daughter was what made this film have a purpose for Murphy.

The film sees Murphy return to star alongside franchise returners and newcomers Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Taylour Paige, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Paul Reiser, Bronson Pinchot and Kevin Bacon. Paige plays Foley’s daughter, with whom he has an estranged relationship.

He explained to us, “That’s the thing that made this script doable. That’s when it clicked. It was like, ‘Oh, now we got something.’ It was like, ‘Why is Axel coming to Beverly Hills after 30 years? Why is he back? Why is he still on the police force and why is he coming here?’ And when they explained that, ‘Oh, he’s coming there because he’s got a daughter who’s there who’s in trouble and they have an estranged relationship.’ The movie, on the surface, it’s about solving this crime, but the subplot is that he’s working out this stuff with his daughter. This stuff that he’s working out with his daughter just made everything work.”

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is now streaming on Netflix.