“Beverly Hills Cop” was one of Eddie Murphy’s most memorable and successful roles—and now he’s bringing it to the small screen.
According to Vulture, CBS has picked up the remake, which will be produced by “The Shield’s” Shawn Ryan and Murphy himself will reprise his original role from the movie version, Axel Foley. However, the show will follow Axel’s son, Aaron, and his struggles to get out of his father’s shadow. Aaron has not been cast.
Ryan seems very excited to take on the project. “I always loved the movies, the character of Axel and the juxtaposition of blue collar Midwest vs. Beverly Hills wealthy,” Ryan said to Hit Fix. “Having the opportunity to explore this in television and especially to write for Eddie Murphy is an opportunity I couldn’t turn down. Eddie is very excited about this and pumped to play Axel again.”
Comedy isn’t something Ryan is used to doing but he is up for the challenge and insists the comedic parts will be both scripted and improvised, something that isn’t very common on primetime television. According to Ryan, the show is already setting a bunch of new precedents. “We’ll be doing a mixture of scripted and improvisational comedy that I don’t think (to my knowledge) has been done in the 1-hour drama universe before,” he continued. “Also, in an era where most new shows are being shipped out of Los Angeles, we’ll get to film this here, which will bring me closer to production after a run of shows (“Terriers,” “Chicago Code,” “Last Resort”) that have all filmed out of town.”
Many viewers tend to be wary of remakes but Ryan isn’t worried about the naysayers. He admitted that people have told him doing this show isn’t a good idea and he has let that criticism motivate him. “Finally, this is the kind of thing a lot of people will say can’t be done (or at least done well) and I love the challenge of trying to prove them wrong,” he mused. “Going to be fun.”
