In July, one of Eddie Murphy’s most iconic film franchises, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, premiered after decades of remaining in development.
Though the first two movies were massive box office hits, the third installment did not live up to its predecessors.
The first sequel did not receive many talked-about reviews, however, it was the highest-grossing domestic movie in 1987.
The third sequel became a critical and commercial disaster.
Eddie Murphy even admitted in an interview with Screen Rant that Cop III was missing some key elements that made the earlier movies good, specifically, one co-star and more.
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Watch the interview below.
With that, the actor also explained just why the film was a misfire.
“The reason Beverly Hills Cop 3 was soft was because Taggart’s not in the movie, the villain isn’t villainous enough, and Axel didn’t have any skin in the game. In the first movie, Axel’s best friend is killed. And the second one, his boss, the Chief, gets killed. Then also in the third one, Uncle Dave is in trouble. That’s what the movie’s about.
Beverly Hills Cop 3 wasn’t just a failure, but certainly a disappointment for all who were involved, which did not surprise Eddie.
He indicated that he knew the movie wasn’t clicking while he was filming it, as one scene was so cliched that he knew it was in trouble.
He explained: “This is when you can tell a movie’s not going to work: when you have one of those lines that you’ve seen millions [of times] and hundreds of thousands of movies have said this line.
There was one scene where I had Uncle Dave in the back, and he was dying. I was driving, and I said,
‘Don’t you die on me, man!’ How many times have you seen that in a movie? When somebody’s dying, ‘Don’t you die on me!’
If you are in a movie and you scream, “Don’t you die on me,” that means the movie’s not going to work. [Laughs]
It’s difficult not to argue that whatever magic was present within the first two Beverly Hills Cop movies was missing in the third.
