It’s been nearly three decades since the last Beverly Hills Cop movie, but Eddie Murphy is finally ready to revisit the franchise. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley began filming last year, and Murphy reveals why it took so long to get back in the role. While speaking with Collider, he said Jerry Bruckheimer’s work on the script is what put the movie forward:

A fourth movie began development shortly after the third premiered in 1994, but it had a complicated production, changing directors, producers, and scripts many times. Star Eddie Murphy was unimpressed with the previous scripts but has finally found one he loves. He began acting on Saturday Night Live in the early 80s, and the first Beverly Hills Cop movie rocketed him toward stardom in 1984.

“Jerry Bruckheimer, the original producer. When he got involved, and he started developing the script, and he knew what Beverly Hills Cop was supposed to be… that’s when it all started to come together. Because we tried for years and years, maybe 10, 12 years, and I must have read five or six different scripts, and it was never right. The studio was like, ‘Let’s go. Here it is.’ It was like, ‘It’s just not it.’ Jerry Bruckheimer got back in there, and he knows his s**t, and he put it together. He did [Top Gun: Maverick] just last year, and Bad Boys is Jerry Bruckheimer. So we have that same brain behind Beverly Hills Cop, and he put all the pieces in place that were required for us to make a great movie. And I’m excited for people to see it.”

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Eddie Murphy Received Injuries While Doing Stunts for Beverly Hills Cop 4

     Paramount Pictures

Murphy says he won’t be doing as many stunts this time around as he’s much older than he was during the first film. The stunts he did do had negative impacts on his health:

The fourth entry in the franchise has a brand-new director, Mark Malloy, in his first full-length film debut. He’s joined by seasoned screenwriter Will Beall, known for writing the TV series Training Day along with the DC movies Aquaman and Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

“I’m not 21. It was a long time ago, and it’s a really physical movie. And then I had to do some physical stuff. I know Tom Cruise likes to do physical stuff, but… I like to be on the couch. I don’t like to be jumping over, and shooting, and running, and I had to do some jumping and shooting and running, and as a result, had a knee brace at the end of the movie. I had a knee brace, and my back is messed up, and all that. But the movie is going to be special.”

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel Foley will premiere on Netflix, but no release date or plot details have been revealed. Mark Malloy is set to direct, with a script written by Will Beall. Eddie Murphy will star in the film, and actors returning from previous Beverly Hills Cop movies include Judge Reinhold, Paul Reiser, and John Ashton. Kevin Bacon and Joseph Godron-Levitt have also been cast in the film.