Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is loaded with easter eggs, but it borrowed its best gag from the franchise’s failed TV pilot. Eddie Murphy hated the Beverly Hills Cop sequels (though his stance on the second movie has since softened), and refused to return for a fourth movie with a good script in place. This led to a lengthy development cycle, with Netflix’s Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F proving to be worth the extended wait. Murphy proved yet again he’s one of the funniest movie stars of his generation, and the sequel has been a big hit for the streamer.

In light of the sequel’s success, it feels inevitable Beverly Hills Cop 5 will get greenlit. The series has come a long way from the failure of the third Beverly Hills Cop movie in 1994. This lackluster outing sent Murphy’s Axel to a Disneyland-esque theme park, and was so poorly received it felt like a franchise killer. In the gap between the third film and Axel F, CBS greenlit a Beverly Hills Cop TV pilot that failed to launch a series.

Axel F Rips Off The Best Improv Gag From CBS’ Failed Beverly Hills Cop Pilot

Axel F recycled a few ideas from CBS’ take on Beverly Hills Cop

The 2013 Beverly Hills Cop pilot cast Brandon T. Jackson as Aaron Foley, Axel’s son. The setup for the show saw Aaron heading to Beverly Hills on a case and deciding to stay there having weekly misadventures. The big news surrounding the CBS pilot was that Murphy would be making a guest appearance as Axel, who would arrive to assist Aaron during his investigation. The network ultimately passed on the show, though copies of the Beverly Hills Cop pilot later found their way online (via Internet Archive) for fans to judge for themselves.

What’s interesting to note is that one of Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F’s funniest scenes bears a resemblance to a sequence from the pilot. In Axel F, the title character uses his trademark powers of improv to get information out of people. This includes flattering the manager of an impound lot named Boghos (Sean Liang), who was also an extra in sci-fi bomb Jupiter Ascending. Axel does well until his daughter Jane (Taylour Paige) decides to make his job harder by tossing in improvs of her own, including asking him to explain Jupiter Ascending’s plot.

CBS’s Beverly Hills Cop featured a similar improv heavy session between Foley and his son when they’re trying to earn a free room in a fancy hotel. This involves Axel pretending to be Beyonce and Jay Z’s party planner, with Aaron being his assistant. Just when Aaron is making progress, Axel decides to mix things up by making their lie more elaborate, including inquiring about a pony they need for a party. This is one of the few standout moments from the pilot, and while Axel F does it’s own spin, it’s essentially the same gag.

Why CBS Passed On The Beverly Hills Cop Pilot

Eddie Murphy turned out to be the pilot’s biggest problem

The CBS Beverly Hills Cop pilot was announced to great fanfare, but went nowhere fast. An issue with the episode is that it’s more or less a standard CBS procedural, but one that aims to be a little funnier. Murphy only has a handful of scenes and is (naturally) really charming and hilarious whenever he pops up. During an interview with IndieWire in 2019, Murphy explained that his presence in the episode turned out to be an unexpected issue.

The reason that didn’t get picked up was because [the studio] thought that I was going to be in this show, because [the lead] was my son: “And you’re going to pop in every now and then.” I was like, “I ain’t popping in s***.” “Well, we ain’t making this TV show.” I was in the pilot, but they wanted me to be there every week. The pilot was really good. It tested where they have these knobs [that you] turn if you like it. And whenever I came on the screen, Axel Foley would come on the screen, they turned it so they literally broke the knobs on the thing. It was like, “Damn, they breaking knobs?

Indeed, the best parts of the pilot are between Axel and Aaron, but a comic void opens up whenever Murphy is offscreen. Murphy’s appearance also felt like a passing of the torch, to the extent that it ends with Axel gifting his son his iconic Detroit Lions jacket. The issue was that audiences wanted Murphy to co-star, which was something he was unwilling to do.

Axel F Ignores CBS’ Beverly Hills Cop

Aaron Foley doesn’t make a surprise cameo

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F reveals a lot happened in the 30 years since the third movie. Axel got married and had a child, but he pushed them out of Detroit once the mafia threatened their lives. Jane is an only child in Axel F, meaning the pilot episode is officially non-canon with the movies. This isn’t any kind of surprise, considering hardly anybody has seen the pilot and it would be odd to drop in references to it.

Another odd similarity between Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F and the pilot is that they both leave the mother of Axel’s children intentionally vague. Presumably, Aaron’s mother is Janice Perkins (Theresa Randle) from Beverly Hills Cop 3, though this is left ambiguous. The fourth film goes out of its way to rule this out, establishing Axel’s daughter Jane was born before the events of the third film, and that her mother’s maiden name is Saunders.

Source: Internet Archive, IndieWire