Eddie Murphy needed to see "evolution" for Axel Foley before signing up for 'Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F'.
Eddie Murphy demanded 'evolution' for Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
The 63-year-old star returns as the detective for the first time in three decades in the new movie and explained that it has taken so long to get to the big screen because he wasn't satisfied with the "generic" story proposals of the past.
Eddie told Screen Rant: "The reason why the movie didn't come together for years and years and years is because, in all the scripts that I read, there was no evolution. It was just, 'Axel's coming back now, and he's on a new mission.'
"It was like, 'Okay, now this has happened.' It was just the generic things. 'This happens, and that happens, then this happens, and that happens.' And nothing worked."
The 'Dr. Dolittle' star explained that it was the storyline about Axel's estrangement from his daughter Jane Saunders (Taylour Paige) that eventually piqued his interest.
Murphy said: "Once they added the element where Axel was married, and he's not with his wife anymore, and they have a child and he's estranged from his child, and he's still in this job and all of his contemporaries are leaving... All he's got is his job, and he's got this horrible relationship.
"And the reason Axel's back in Beverly Hills on the surface is cops and robbers, but behind the scenes, it's really to reconcile with his daughter and all that stuff. Once we added that element, then we had a movie."
Eddie also expressed his delight at getting to reunite with Judge Reinhold and John Ashton on the film as they reprise their roles as Lieutenant Billy Rosewood and Chief John Taggart respectively.
He said: "Working with those two guys? That's the heart of the movie, me and those guys, and my relationship with those guys.
"The reason 'Beverly Hills Cop 3' was soft was because Taggart's not in the movie, and the villain isn't villainous enough, and Axel didn't have any skin in the game."
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