Beverly Hills Cop - Production

Production

Danilo Bach completed a draft for the film in 1977, seven years prior to production. The earliest version of the script involved a cop in East L.A. who was transferred to Beverly Hills, before evolving into the story of a cop from the East Coast who came to Beverly Hills to avenge the death of his friend. Drafts before the script was locked in (and became more of the comedy it ended up being) gave the cop's name as Axel Elly and set the out-of-Beverly Hills action in Pittsburgh.

When asked by the producers, director Martin Brest flipped a quarter to decide whether to undertake the direction of the film or not. As the movie proved to be an enormous hit, he framed the quarter and hung it on his wall.

On the DVD featurette, producer Jerry Bruckheimer claimed that the part of Axel Foley was first offered to Mickey Rourke, who signed a $400,000 holding contract to do the film. When revisions and other preparations took longer than expected, Rourke left the project after his contract expired to do another film. It was then offered to Sylvester Stallone, with the character of Michael Tandino being his brother, and Jenny Summers being his love interest. Two weeks before filming was to start, Stallone was suddenly out and Eddie Murphy was in, prompting massive rewrites. According to Eddie Murphy on Inside the Actor's Studio, Stallone also envisioned a "harder edged" screenplay. After his departure due to differences in scope (Stallone essentially rewrote Beverly Hills Cop as what would be the 1986 film, Cobra), the role was re-written for Murphy. Besides Stallone and Rourke, other actors who were considered for the role of Axel Foley included Richard Pryor, Al Pacino, and James Caan. In one of the previous drafts written for Stallone, Billy Rosewood was called "Siddons" and was killed off half-way through the script during one of the action scenes deemed "too expensive" for Paramount to produce.

In the process of casting the characters of Rosewood and Taggart, the director paired up various finalists and asked them to do some improvisation to get a feel for the chemistry between the actors. He paired up Judge Reinhold and John Ashton and gave them the following direction: "You are a middle aged couple, married for years. You are having a conversation on an average evening." Judge Reinhold immediately picked up a nearby magazine and the two improvised the "5 pounds of red meat in his bowels" bit almost verbatim as it eventually appeared in the movie. This got them the parts. Only after Martin Brest cast Judge Reinhold and John Ashton was the decision made to keep Rosewood alive due to his chemistry with Taggart. The original finale for the Stallone draft of the script took place at night and ended with a car chase between Victor in a Lamborghini and Foley in a turbo-boosted Pontiac GTO. Victor is ultimately killed when his car smashes into an oncoming train.

Some scenes were filmed in Detroit, including scenes filmed in Brush Park. The T-shirt that Murphy wears in the film is from Mumford, a real high school in Detroit. The Renaissance Center is visible in the opening scene.

Gil Hill, the actor who portrayed Inspector Douglas Todd, was a real-life detective in the Detroit Police Department who later became a Detroit City Council member and mayoral candidate, losing to Kwame Kilpatrick in 2001.

In the art gallery, there is a large art piece containing several figures. One of the figures, a maitre'd with a chain around its neck, is modelled after director Martin Brest.

During his tirade at the Beverly Palms Hotel, Foley pretends to be writing an article called "Michael Jackson: Sitting on Top of the World" for Rolling Stone magazine. In real life, Playboy ran an article called "Eddie Murphy: Sitting on Top of the World."

The scene in which Foley, Rosewood, and Taggart give an explanation to Bogomil about the strip club arrest was improvised according to a making-of featurette. The song which plays during the strip club scene, "Nasty Girl" by Vanity 6, was recommended by the real-life stripper who was hired for the scene.

When trying to find Foley and Rosewood, the Beverly Hills Police control room use a GPS. Such a system did not exist at the time and was made up to advance the plot. The pistol Murphy uses in the movie is a Browning High Power 9mm pistol.