The Beverly Hills cop (W9): how Sylvester Stallone let Eddy Murphy lose the title role

Reference detective comedy, Le flic de Beverly Hills, broadcast this Monday, April 10, 2023 at 9:05 p.m. on W9, had a laborious production. Passed from hand to hand, the film was to be worn by Sylvester Stallone for a while. Tele-Leisure explains to you.

What if Sylvester Stallone (starring in his first series) had played Axel Foley? Sometimes, films experience chaotic developments, or at least very slow. This is the case of Flic de Beverly Hills, which will soon be entitled to a fourth installment. Today, the feature film remains a standard meter of police comedy. Who does not know the few very heady notes of the synthesizers of the main theme of the soundtrack, or the black and white jacket worn by Axel Foley? A film that relies almost entirely on the charisma of Eddy Murphy in the role of this cop with contagious humor and devastating energy. He plays this Detroit police lieutenant with unorthodox methods going to Beverly Hills, against the advice of his superior, to investigate the murder of his childhood friend.

From Mickey Rourke to Sylvester Stallone

Released in French theaters in 1985, the film took several years to come to fruition. You have to go back to 1977 to understand the genesis of the Flic de Beverly Hills. At the time, producer Don Simpson had the idea for a detective comedy and commissioned screenwriter Danilo Bach to write it. The script interested the Paramount studio, which offered the main role to Mickey Rourke, enjoying a good side of popularity since The gate of paradise (1980) et body fever (nineteen eighty one). Only time passes. The production dithers and the script is reworked several times. The American actor then withdraws. After a rewrite by Daniel Petrie Jr., the producers bring in Sylvester Stallone.

A completely changed scenario

So at the pinnacle of glory with the Oscar winner Rocky (1976) then Rambo (1982), the world star accepts. However he decides to rewrite the character of Axel Foley, renaming him for example Axel Cobretti, in order to nickname him Cobra. Even more, he gets very involved in the script and changes its nature. He adds many action scenes, diminishes the comic tone of the original screenplay to give it more dramatic accents. The production considers this new direction too expensive and prefers to put an end to its collaboration with Sylvester Stallone, who understands this decision (he will use his ideas in Cobra several years later). Returning to the original material, the American studio turns to a hilarious man in the exercise of the stand-up, excellent in the famous show Saturday Night Live. Already noticed in 48 hours (1982) et A chair for two (1983), Eddy Murphy seizes this opportunity. The rest is history…