Beverly Hills Cop

The Beverly Hills City Hall featured prominently in the Beverly Hills Cop films as the police headquarters.

In 1977, Paramount executive Don Simpson came up with a movie idea about a cop from East L.A. who transferred to Beverly Hills.[4] Screenwriter Danilo Bach was called in to write the screenplay. Bach pitched his idea to Simpson and Paramount in 1981 under the name Beverly Drive, about a cop from Pittsburgh named Elly Axel.[4] However, his script was a straight action film and Bach was forced to make changes to the script, but after a few attempts the project went stale.[4] With the success of Flashdance (1983), Simpson saw the Beverly Hills film as his next big project.[4] Daniel Petrie, Jr. was brought in to rewrite the script and Paramount loved Petrie's humorous approach to the project, with the lead character now called Axel Elly, from Detroit.[4] Producer Jerry Bruckheimer claimed that the role of Axel Foley was first offered to Mickey Rourke, who signed a $400,000 holding contract to do the film. When revisions and other preparations took longer than expected, Rourke left the project to do another film. Martin Scorsese was offered to direct the film but turned it down as he felt that the film's concept was too similar to Coogan's Bluff.[5] David Cronenberg was also offered to direct the film but also turned it down.[6]

Sylvester Stallone was originally considered for the part of Foley.[7] Stallone gave the script a dramatic rewrite, removing all the story's humor and turning Beverly Hills Cop back into a standard action movie.[8][4] In one of the previous drafts written for Stallone, the character of Billy Rosewood was called "Siddons" and was killed off half-way through the script during one of the action scenes.[9] Stallone had renamed the lead character to Axel Cobretti, with the character of Michael Tandino being his brother and Jenny Summers playing his love interest. Stallone has said that his script for Beverly Hills Cop would have "looked like the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan on the beaches of Normandy. Believe it or not, the finale was me in a stolen Lamborghini playing chicken with an oncoming freight train being driven by the ultra-slimy bad guy."[4] Producer Don Simpson let it be known they didn't want to move forward with Stallone's revisions, since Stallone wasn't willing to negotiate the rewrite, Simpson asked writer Charles "Chip" Proser if he could return the script to previous iteration, while leaving most of Stallone's character revisions intact? However Proser found the task (and turnaround time) preposterous.

'They offered me the rewrite when it was nothing more than Sylvester Stallone and an exotic gun—which was pretty ridiculous,' remembered screenwriter Chip Proser, who would later write [an uncredited rewrite of] Simpson and Bruckheimer’s Top Gun.[8]

According to co-producer Don Simpson, Sly’s new script spent too much time on the star 'soaping down his muscles.'[10] Stallone ultimately dropped out two weeks before filming was to start, ostensibly to concentrate on his next picture, the 1984 film Rhinestone.[8] Stallone would later use the bulk of these ideas as the basis for the 1986 film Cobra. Don Simpson would later tell friends a story—impossible to corroborate—about how he finally got Stallone off the project and got the project back on track: He and Stallone had a mutual interest in "youth treatments" and Simpson knew of a Swiss doctor who was experimenting with injections of a sheep hormone that increased tumescence. Simpson managed to get Stallone's name "put at the top of the list," Simpson boasted to a friend, for an appointment with the very exclusive doctor. Stallone flew to Switzerland, and Simpson promptly continued working on Beverly Hills Cop without him.[11] Two days later, the film's producers, Simpson and Bruckheimer, convinced Eddie Murphy to replace Stallone in the film, prompting more rewrites.[12] Besides Stallone and Rourke, other actors who were considered for the role of Axel Foley included Richard Pryor, Al Pacino, and James Caan.[13] Harrison Ford was offered the role of Axel Foley but turned it down.[14] The final shooting draft of the script, which was extensively revised with Murphy's input, was not completed until the day production began.[15]

The film was budgeted at $14 million, including $4 million for Murphy, but was completed for around $13 million.[2] Production began in May 1984 and continued into the summer, taking place mostly in and around Los Angeles, though the opening sequence was filmed over several days in Michigan, in Detroit and nearby Wayne.[15] Many scenes set in Beverly Hills were shot in Pasadena instead, as the city of Beverly Hills prohibited filming after 10:30 p.m.[15]

The soundtrack was released on MCA Records and won the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media (1986). The instrumental title tune, "Axel F", composed and performed by Harold Faltermeyer, has been covered by numerous artists. The soundtrack also featured the song "Neutron Dance," performed by the Pointer Sisters, which became a Billboard Top 10 hit, and two Patti LaBelle hits, "New Attitude," which hit the top twenty on the US Billboard Hot 100, and the Grammy Award-winning "Stir It Up."[16]

Beverly Hills Cop was released on December 5, 1984, in 1,532 theaters.[3] It debuted in first place at the US box office, making $15,214,805 in its first five days of release. It expanded on December 21 into 2,006 theatres.[3] The film stayed at number one for 13 consecutive weeks and returned to number one in its 15th weekend making 14 non-consecutive weeks at number one tying Tootsie for the film with the most weeks at number one.[17] The film earned $234,760,478 in the United States, being the highest-grossing film released in 1984.[18] Adjusted for inflation, it is the third highest-grossing R-rated film of all-time behind The Exorcist and The Godfather.[19] For nearly two decades, Beverly Hills Cop would hold the record for having the highest domestic gross for an R-rated film until 2003 when it was taken by The Matrix Reloaded.[20] Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 67 million tickets in the US.[21]

On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 83% from 53 critics with an average rating of 7.3/10. The site's consensus reads, "The buddy cop movie continues its evolution unabated with this Eddie Murphy vehicle that's fast, furious, and funny."[22] Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote "Beverly Hills Cop finds Eddie Murphy doing what he does best: playing the shrewdest, hippest, fastest-talking underdog in a rich man's world. Eddie Murphy knows exactly what he's doing, and he wins at every turn."[23] Richard Schickel of Time magazine wrote that "Eddie Murphy exuded the kind of cheeky, cocky charm that has been missing from the screen since Cagney was a pup, snarling his way out of the ghetto."[24] Axel Foley became Murphy's signature role and was ranked No. 78 on Empire magazine's list of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.[25] Also, Entertainment Weekly magazine ranked Beverly Hills Cop as the third best comedy film of the last 25 years. According to Christopher Hitchens, the British novelist and poet Kingsley Amis considered the film "a flawless masterpiece."[26]

John Simon of National Review called Beverly Hills Cop "a truly contemptible film."[27]

In 2003, the film was picked by The New York Times as one of the 1000 Best Movies Ever Made.[28]

• This film is No. 22 on Bravo's list of the 100 funniest films.[29][30]

American Film Institute Lists

• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies - Nominated[31]
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs - #63
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains:
  • Detective Axel Foley - Nominated Hero[32]