In this dream-come-true feature for Letterboxd Journal, I talk to one of my childhood heroes, Eddie Freaking Murphy, about reviving the Beverly Hills Cop franchise. I also speak to co-stars John Ashton, who has since sadly passed away, Judge Reinhold, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Kevin Bacon, as well as director Mark Molloy. 

Not a lot of films can lay claim to having created an entire genre, but the fact is that action-comedy as we know and love it simply didn’t exist before Beverly Hills Cop showed just how much fun that combination can be.

It’s not that action movies didn’t have humor before Beverly Hills Cop, but the particular balance achieved by Martin Brest’s 1984 megahit (it was the highest-grossing R-rated film of all-time until Fatal Attraction dethroned it in 1987) demonstrated an intoxicating alchemy that umpteen movies (everything from Tango & Cash to Bad Boys) would subsequently strive to capture.