Well, damn! 

It’s rough out there folks. This has been one hell of a week for TV drops and pickups. Compared to this same period last year, we’ve had much more to cover.

Here’s another casualty, which I’m actually surprised by. I foolishly thought this was a lock, given the brand, and who was involved (notably Shawn Ryan and Eddie Murphy). Nobody’s safe.

CBS has 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.

Murphy, who was to appear in the pilot (at least), teamed up with Shawn Ryan (creator of shows like The Shield and The Last Resort) and Sony Pictures Television, to produce a small screen version of the film franchise, as a serial.

After some serious competition from all 4 major networks for the series last year, CBS emerged the winner of this new Beverly Hills Cop series.

Shawn Ryan was to serve as showrunner, if CBS picked it up. Apparently, the pilot episode that was shot earlier this year, didn’t do much for CBS, or they just felt that it wasn’t a fit.

Described as an hour-long crime procedural with strong comedic elements, the series was to have a similar fish-out-of-water setup as the film, and would center on Axel Foley’s son, Aaron, a blue-collar police officer, trying to make a name for himself, absent of his prominent father’s influence, and the criminals among the rich and famous in Beverly Hills he helps eliminate.

Shawn Ryan wrote the pilot episode script, and is executive producing with Eddie Murphy. 

So it’s dead… for now. Given that there was supposedly interest in the project from all 4 major networks, there’s a chance that it could end up elsewhere… or not. So stay tuned.

The carnage continues…