Production
During the early drafts of the script, the plot for the film concerned Foley, Rosewood, and Taggart (John Ashton) going to London to rescue Capt. Bogomil (Ronny Cox) who was being held hostage by terrorists during an International Police Convention. However, numerous problems such as scripting issues and budgeting caused pre-production to drag out the point that both John Aston and Ronny Cox had to drop out due to obligations to other pending film projects. Ashton's part was re-written as John Flint (Héctor Elizondo) and dialogue was inserted to explain that Taggart had retired and moved to Phoenix. Cox's absence is never addressed in this movie, nor is he mentioned at any point. Both Ashton and Cox have subtle cameos in this movie in the form of a picture on Rosewood's desk of Foley, Taggart, Rosewood, and Bogomil on a fishing trip. This is the same picture which also appeared in Beverly Hills Cop II on Bogomil's and Foley's desks. In an interview in 2012, Ronny Cox said, "They wanted me to be in Beverly Hills Cop III, but...I read the script."
Among the rejected ideas for "Beverly Hills Cop III" included a Robert Towne screenplay idea (one in which Axel Foley has to deal with his celebrity cop status), a scenario teaming Eddie Murphy with Sean Connery as a Scotland Yard detective, and another Axel-in-London idea where his Scotland Yard counterpart would have been played by John Cleese. The last story would have involved British gangsters loosely based on the real-life Kray brothers, who were captured in Detroit and transported to London by Paul Reiser's Jeffrey, and Axel would have gone overseas after the gangster's henchmen broke him out of custody and murdered Jeffrey. This concept was scrapped because producers Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer decided it was too close to the storyline of the Michael Douglas' 1989 film Black Rain.
When writer Steven E. de Souza was brought in, he originally wrote the story as more "Die Hard in a theme park". He was told that each of the rides he had designed would cost about $10 million to build and the whole film would cost about $70 million. When box office results for The Distinguished Gentleman came in, Paramount ordered the budget to be cut to $55 million. Paramount had earlier told Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer that they would only outlay $25 million for a proposed version to be set in New York City, one of the main reasons that the producing team parted ways with the studio. Joel Silver was set to take over producing duties from Simpson & Bruckheimer; however, negotiations on a large budget resulted in production delays leading to Silver quitting production. It was at this time that producers Mace Neufeld and Robert Rehme took on the project. Consequently the film became more about the investigation and less about the action.
Production was temporarily shut down to allow the Paramount top brass the chance to get to grips with the film's spiraling budget. Originally estimated at $55 million, it was soon in excess of US$70 million. Of that budget, $15 million was Eddie Murphy's paycheck.
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