The only thing Eddie Murphy does less than interviews is make good movies, so when he recently sat down with Rolling Stone to address both, it was kind of a big deal. Among his intriguing statements were that he’s through making family movies and is looking for “edgy stuff.” Let’s just hope “edgy” doesn’t mean more Brett Ratner movies, like the one he’s in next month. Doing 15 years of fatsuit movies tends to warp your perspective.

Murphy says that his days of making family movies may be over. “I don’t have any interest in that right now,” he says. “There’s really no blueprint, but I’m trying to do some edgy stuff. And I only want to do what I really want to do, otherwise I’m content to sit here and play my guitar all day. I always tell people now that I’m a semi-retired gentleman of leisure, and occasionally I’ll go do some work to break the boredom up.”

“I’ve already accomplished everything I wanted to. Right now I’m just, like, content to focus on my music or whatever.” (*blows bangs out of eyes, plays intro to “Tainted Love” on Casio*)

Murphy has decided not to make Beverly Hills Cop IV. [Which was also rumored to be a Ratner project. -Ed.] “They’re not doing it,” he says. “What I’m trying to do now is produce a TV show starring Axel Foley’s son, and Axel is the chief of police now in Detroit. I’d do the pilot, show up here and there. None of the movie scripts were right; it was trying to force the premise. If you have to force something, you shouldn’t be doing it. It was always a rehash of the old thing. It was always wrong.”

YOU MIGHT AS WELL SLAP THE FOOD RIGHT OUT OF JUDGE REINHOLD’S MOUTH, YOU COLD-HEARTED SON OF A BITCH!

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I’m pretty sure this story is like six months old, but if MTV says it’s new who am I to argue.  Besides, I need to refresh your memory about Brett Ratner’s plans to ruin re-ruin the Beverly Hills Cop franchise.

“The remake will not only maintain the original movie’s rating and star, it will also carry the same title. “We’re not going to call it ‘4,’ he said. “It will be a new ‘Beverly Hills Cop.’”

Not numbering your sequel?? It’s never been done!  You’re a loose cannon, Ratner!  This town isn’t ready!

“It’s a reinvention,” the director revealed. “I’m going to reintroduce it to a contemporary audience. I’m going to take the best of the first two films and put it into the new one.” Ratner cited a curious recent example. “Look at what they did with ‘Indiana Jones,’” he said. “Tonally you have three different films.”

And yet numerically, you have four different films.  ‘Tis a paradox.

“Eddie Murphy to me was what Chris Tucker is to 12 and 13 year olds today,” he said. “I would never do another buddy cop movie, but to do ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ is a dream for me. Eddie is a genius.” [via MTV]

Whoa whoa whoa, are we gonna need to put out an Amber Alert on Chris Tucker?  This kind of thing is nothing to joke about, my girlfriend’s 13.

^{Murphy congratulates Ratner on his birthday present from grandma}

As previously reported, Beverly Hills Cop 4 will team Eddie Murphy with Brett Ratner, because besides a penchant for shitty movies, they both love trannies.  Latino Review recently got hold of an early script, written by Derek Haas and Michael Brandt (who’ve worked on scripts for 2 Fast 2 Furious, Wanted, and 3:10 to Yuma).

It’s been 15 years since Axel Foley was last in Beverly Hills, and they needed a good reason to bring him back. That reason comes just a couple of pages into the latest script for Beverly Hills Cop IV (which calls itself Beverly Hills Cop 2009) – Judge Reinhold’s Billy Rosewood takes a leap out the 20th story of the Los Angeles Police HQ. When Axel hears that his former partner and best buddy became sidewalk salad he knows it wasn’t a suicide and he flies to Beverly Hills to get all the facts for himself.

In this movie they mention that they teach his cases at the police academy and that a restaurant had an Axel Foley sandwich on the menu! (It’s been renamed the Timbaland) Axel Foley knows his way around LA better than his new partner on the case who was born there.

That new partner is Goodwin, a fat rookie with low self-esteem who has a crush on a lady cop in the facial recognition department. When he’s not solving the mystery of who tossed Billy out the window, Axel is playing matchmaker with these two. He’s also teaching Goodwin how to be a better cop. It’s like the Axel Foley Finishing School.

Here is the scoop: The studio loves the draft but Eddie Murphy is not too keen on it.

Keep in mind, Eddie Murphy’s last two movies were about Eddie Murphy coming to Earth in an Eddie Murphy-shaped spaceship, and a nerdy Eddie Murphy who’s married to a fat female Eddie Murphy.  He’d probably like the script better if, while sent to investigate the disappearance of Eddie Murphy, Eddie Murphy could fall in love with a hot young rookie cop named Eddie Murphy, get drawn into an Eddie Murphy memorabilia smuggling ring, and eventually have to confront his arch nemesis… Frank Stallone.

Last week The Hollywood Reporter was reporting that Brett Ratner was all but confirmed to direct a remake of Conan the Barbarian.  According to the LA Times, that may just have been wishful thinking on the part of the producer.  And, yes, that means there’s a producer out there actually wishing for Brett Ratner.  Tomorrow it may rain cats while I wear shoes on my hands.

One of Hollywood’s most persuasive salesman, [Conan producer Avi] Lerner told me this morning that Ratner was the perfect director. “He has the passion and feeling for this project–he even wrote a story about Conan when he was 10 years old,” Lerner explained. “He understands the character, he analyzed the script really well. He knows how to make this a really big movie. I like his childlike enthusiasm–he almost sees these movies as wonderful toys. What can I say, he’s a nice, likable Jewish boy.”

Unfortunately, his childlike enthusiasm is really just a side effect of having the mind of a child.

But is Ratner actually committed to doing the film? In two words: Not really. When I called him today, he sounded somewhat agitated, unhappy that news of his negotiations with Lerner had surfaced, especially since he is extremely close to getting a green light from Paramount to make “Beverly Hills Cop 4.” “Let me make this very clear,” he told me. “I am not doing ‘Conan’ now. This is totally premature. For now, ‘Conan’ is only a development deal. I have a deal at Paramount and I’m doing ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ first, no matter what. Avi shouldn’t be telling you or anyone else in the press what I’m doing.”

Oh snap!  Jew fight! Jew fight! Jew fight! Read the rest of this entry »

Brett Ratner recently confirmed to E! that he’s still planning to team up with Eddie Murphy for the most fantastically shitty piece of shit in the history of shit Beverly Hills Cop 4.  Ratner plans to bring back not only Axel Foley, but also the original theme song.

Composer-producer Harold Faltermeyer’s synth-pop theme will get an update, but not too much. “Why change that song?” Ratner says.

Exactly.  In fact, why change anything?  If Brett Ratner’s on the project nothing you do’s gonna matter much.  Might as well go with whatever’s easiest.

Ratner goes so far as to say that one of the “biggest problems” with director Michael Mann’s movie adaptation of Miami Vice with Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx in 2006 was the missing iconic theme song.

“I said to [Mann], ‘Why didn’t you have it?’ ” Ratner says. “He said, ‘We’re doing something new.’ [I said], ‘That’s like doing Mission Impossible without the theme song.’”

Don’t adjust your computer, you read that right.  The guy who directed Money Talks really did try to give advice to the guy who did Last of the Mohicans.  This reminds me of the time I followed Tiger Woods at the U.S. Open.  “Hit the 5-iron, you faggot!” I’d scream.

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