Paramount and Bruckheimer To Make ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ and ‘Top Gun’ Sequels

After a 20-year partnership with Disney, producer Jerry Bruckheimer has left Disney for a new deal with Paramount Pictures, including long-awaited sequels to ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ and ‘Top Gun’.

After blockbuster success with the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ franchise, Bruckheimer’s final film with Disney was the poorly received ‘The Lone Ranger’, but the movie's failture wasn’t the source of the split.  According to reports, Bruckheimer has wanted to work on more adult orientated films, something Disney once did through their Touchstone Pictures label but has since eliminated in order to narrow their cinematic prospects to just family-friendly films.

It was announced on Friday that Bruckheimer had signed a 3-year, first-look deal with Paramount Pictures, going into effect after his Disney contract expires next April.  On the new deal, Paramount CEO Brad Grey said,

Jerry Bruckheimer is one of the most creative and prolific producers in motion picture history.  His signature style has attracted huge global audiences and we are thrilled to have him back in the Paramount family.

Bruckheimer’s early work with Paramount included the highly successful films ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ and ‘Top Gun’, two films that will now receive sequels with this new deal.  Tom Cruise will return for the new ‘Top Gun’, and Eddie Murphy’s ‘Beverly Hills Cop 4’ will be the first film produced under the deal.  Murphy has been keen on a new ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ after being thoroughly disappointed with the third installment.  Rumors have been going for years that a new film would center around Murphy’s character Axel Foley returning to Beverly Hills and reteaming with retired detective John Taggart (John Ashton) to investigate the murder of Det. Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold).  At this time there is nothing definite about the script other than it will be writen by ‘Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol” writers Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec.

Murphy attempted to produce a ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ television series for CBS this past summer, creating a pilot episode with himself as the new Inspector of the Detroit Police Department and his son, played by Brandon Jackson, joining the force as a brash new detective, but CBS passed on the series.