Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F starring Eddie Murphy has been given an R-rating.
Surprise, surprise! Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F has been slapped with an R-rating for “language throughout, violence, and brief drug use.” This shouldn’t come as a shock since all three previous movies in the Beverly Hills Cop franchise also sported an R-rating. Guess some things never change!
After nearly three decades since the last film, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F reunites us with Detective Axel Foley (played by the legendary Eddie Murphy) as he returns to the streets of Beverly Hills. The official synopsis teases, “After his daughter’s life is threatened, she (Taylour Paige) and Foley team up with a new partner (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and old pals Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and John Taggart (John Ashton) to turn up the heat and uncover a conspiracy.” The sequel was directed by Mark Molloy with a screenplay by Will Beall and Tom Gormican & Kevin Etten.
Mark Molloy recently spilled the beans to Entertainment Weekly about the highly anticipated sequel, revealing that he first laid eyes on Beverly Hills Cop when he was a wee lad of 11 or 12 down in Australia. He reminisced, “It just blew me away.”
Aside from Eddie Murphy’s return, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F also sees the comeback of original cast members like Judge Reinhold as Lt. William “Billy” Rosewood, John Ashton as Sgt. John Taggart, Paul Reiser as Det. Jeffrey Friedman, and Bronson Pinchot as Serge. Molloy was over the moon to have the gang back together and made sure to let Murphy, Reinhold, and Ashton flex their improv muscles just like the good ol’ days.
“Eddie, John, and Judge sat in the car and they would just talk s—,” Molloy recalled with a chuckle. “And they told me that a lot of the first film is some of those moments when they were just allowed to sit there and talk to each other. I always had that image of those three guys on a stakeout in the car together, it was just imprinted in my brain. And then I remember sitting with the three of them in that car, and I actually happened to look around at the crew filming it. I just saw on everyone’s faces, like, ‘Oh man, this is exactly where we want to be right now.’”
Molloy continued, “You’ve got one of the greatest comedians, if not in my eyes, the greatest comedian in the world. A huge part of my job is to create a space for improvisation to thrive. I always want to get what’s on the page, but when you have someone like Eddie Murphy, you want to let him be free. And as I look back on the film, some of the funniest moments in the film is when Eddie is improvising and the audience loves it.”
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is set to premiere on Netflix on July 3rd. Mark your calendars!
