The Movie God works in mysterious ways. Every now and again one of us puny humans will get an idea for a great movie and then proceed to try and screw it up through all sorts of bad decisions, bickering, and other typical people stuff. The Movie God steps in at various points along the way and steers the boat, so to speak. To most of us they seem like strange coincidences or just pure luck. To me, they're proof a Movie God. I realize that many of you reading this may be skeptical. This feature will attempt to convert you non-believers.
Until now, my only entry for this feature was devoted to Se7en. However, when I was inspired to create it, Beverly Hills Cop was the movie that I was thinking of. It traveled a long and troubled path to finally make it onto the big screen on December 5, 1984 and quickly becoming that year's top grossing movie and a certified classic. It's already popular young star became a household name around the world. If not for The Movie God, it would've been a very different film.
Depending on who you believe, Beverly Hills Cop was conceived in 1975 by then president of Paramount (future Disney CEO) Michael Eisner, or in 1977 by another Paramount executive by the name of Don Simpson. In any event, the idea was handed over to screenwriter Danilo Bach to see what he could come up with. He wrote a fairly straight-forward action flick about a Pittsburgh cop by the name of Elly Axel. Yes, really. The basic plot was in place as our hero does indeed go to Beverly Hills to investigate the murder of his childhood friend. Paramount big wigs didn't like the script enough to run with it, though. The Movie God's role in this? He granted them the wisdom to stick with that setup. A few different writers were given a crack at it. The winner was a comedic take on the whole thing written by Daniel Petrie, Jr. One other tiny change Petrie was moved by The Movie God to make: our protagonist's name was changed to Axel Foley. With that out of the way, Beverly Hills Cop just had to be filmed.
By this time, it was 1983 and Paramount was looking for a star. Actually, they weren't looking. They knew just who they wanted and signed him to a holding contract and paid him $400,000. Obviously, we're talking about Mickey Rourke. He was still a couple years away from making 9 1/2 Weeks, but was familiar to audiences after roles in Diner, Body Heat, and 1941. Rourke did work with the writers, but The Movie God would not let things get off the ground. In other words, he and they couldn't see eye-to-eye on some changes he wanted. I may be exaggerating that part a bit. Officially, general revisions to the script were taking a really long time. They took so long that Rourke's contract expired and he walked away from the project. And then...sigh...
As man is wont to do, he thinks he knows best and abuses the privilege of free will. In layman's terms, the role of Axel Foley was then handed over to none other than the Italian Stallion himself, Sylvester Stallone. Why not? The dude was Rocky, three times over at this point. He had also just come off his most successful film playing a character different from the famed boxer when he introduced the world to John Rambo in First Blood. Sounds like a great fit, right? It didn't sound like one to Sly, either. He actually known to have said he thought it was sent to the wrong house. Obviously, he couldn't make it as it was so he rewrote the damn thing. Without going into the details of Stallone's script just know that 'everything go boom.' Oh, and our hero's name was changed to Axel Cobretti. Hmmm...that sounds familiar. We'll come back to that in a sec. The Movie God bestowed financial frugality upon the good people at Paramount making them realize that Sly's version of their movie would cost entirely too much money. In Sly's own words, "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." Wait...I said I wasn't getting into the details. Anyhoo, thank Movie God smaller wallets prevailed. Sylvester Stallone was sent packing. Never one to waste, Sly took a number of his ideas for this movie and incorporated them in another movie about a cop named Cobretti - Cobra. Sadly, we didn't get that stolen Lambo scene. Dammit.
Filming was to start in about a month and there was still no one in place to play the lead character. Paramount execs kicked around the usual hot comedic actors of the day. You know, such jesters as Al Pacino and James Caan. Finally, someone remembered this movie was supposed to be funny and the name Richard Pryor was bandied about. Yes, really. Somewhere in all this madness, Martin Scorsese was asked to direct. Yup. Unable to continue leaving the fate of Beverly Hills Cop in the hands of us incompetent humans, The Movie God pointed the studio execs to Saturday Night Live and one of its stars who had done major damage at the box office with 48 Hrs. and Trading Places. At long last, Eddie Murphy was brought in to handle the starring role. Not content with merely having Murphy, The Movie God saw to fit maximize the use of the young comic's talents. Martin Brest was brought in to direct while Petrie had worked and re-worked his script. Still, something was still missing. The Movie God blessed them all with the ability of discernment so that they would understand this. They, in turn, gave Murphy a lot of freedom to just do his thing. He then improvised his way through much of the movie. I think it turned out okay.
It came out on December 5, 1984? Holy shit! I turned 4 years old on that day. Wow... I do love this film and the second one. Mickey Rourke is a great actor but he's not right for Axel Foley. Neither was Sly and that would've been a disaster. Thank goodness for Eddie Murphy at that time. He would become one of my favorites at that time as my parents loved him at that time. Boy, that was a long time ago. Look at him now.
ReplyDeleteA long time ago, indeed. You're the same age as one of my brothers. I can't fathom what it would've been like if Rourke played the.part. as for Sly...yeah, Cobra. I need Eddie to start making R-rated flicks again. I think he'd still be great in some of these raunchy comedies that keep coming out.
DeleteI would love for that to happen but I think Eddie is done. That article from Hitfix really hit home about not just how disappointing his appearance at SNL 40 was but also in the fact that he doesn't seem to really want to do anything challenging anymore.
DeleteHaven't read that, but it certainly seems to be the case the last few years.
DeleteI don't think I could imagine anyone else playing the role. I enjoyed Beverly Hills Cop, and much of it had to do with Eddie Murphy! The movie would certainly be a lot different if the other contenders took a shot at it.
ReplyDeleteBy being allowed to improvise so much he certainly put his mark all over it. Axel Foley is all his.
DeleteThis is an incredible bit of trivia that goes to show, sometimes classics weren't always meant to be classics, which makes their classic status all the more impressive.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe I still need to see this...
EEK!
Oh, you definitely need to see this. This is required viewing if you want to have any clue what the big deal over Eddie Murphy was back in the day. It's amazing that he made up much of it right on the spot.
DeleteGreat post! I actually saw this movie 3 times in 3 days. I was a college freshman in 1984 (yes, I'm THAT old! :-) ) and Mom had taken my 14 y/o brother and me to the buttcrack of Mississippi to spend Christmas with relatives. There was nothing to do in town, since we'd gotten a bit old to play in the town dump :-P, so we drove to the next town to find a movie theater. This was the only thing playing that appealed to us. (There were only 2 movies screening in town). So we watched it every day. By the last viewing, we laughed at all the jokes before the actors said them. We loved Axel Foley! Eddie Murphy at his best.
ReplyDeleteThat is an outstanding story! Don't think I've ever seen the same movie in a theater more than twice, and I've only done that a handful of times. I was 13 when Mom took us and the banana in the tailpipe was the funniest thing I'd ever seen.
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