Axel F Director Explains Joke About Third Film

Beverly Hills Police Officers Axel F and Mark Molloy

Courtesy of Netflix; Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel FMark Molloy is now the latest in a long line of filmmakers that Jerry Bruckheimer recruited from the world of advertising.

Having written or directed at least four commercials for Apple, the unassuming Australian filmmaker is not one to claim to have followed in the footsteps of his colleagues Tony Scott and Michael Bay, but in his constant effort to change the status quo, the celebrated producer has often found new talent through commercials and music videos. In the 1980s, Scott was one of the few British commercial directors to export their unconventional style to the United States, and Bruckheimer and Don Simpson have also tapped their talents. Top Gun (1986) was his first American film. The film’s massive success prompted the two producing partners to quickly rehire Scott for Beverly Hills Cop II (1987), a film that Molloy channeled into the now well-received Netflix sequel Axel F.

However, while Molloy initially said yes to the idea of ​​doing a project of Bruckheimer without hesitation, he followed it up in a surprising way with a series of numbers.

“My agent called me one day and said, ‘Jerry Bruckheimer wants to talk to you on the phone.’ And I said, ‘I want to talk to Jerry Bruckheimer on the phone.’ And then Jerry said he’d love to do a movie with you,” Molloy says. The Hollywood Reporter. “He then sent me a bunch of scripts, and I actually said no to all of them. They didn’t seem like a good fit, but he sent me Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. And after 20 pages, I was like, “Oh, I’m in. I love this.”

Molloy has made no secret of his desire to capitalize on audiences’ nostalgia for the Eddie Murphy-led action-comedy franchise. Filmmakers are sometimes reluctant to admit they want to “play the hits” in their own sequels, but Molloy has no qualms about doing so, so much so that he did it almost literally on set.

“While we were filming, I was playing the Beverly Hills Cop “The soundtrack is what I meant,” Molloy says. “During a long pan, I would put the music on and say, ‘Oh, yeah, this is going to work,’ or ‘Can we pan a little slower?’ So I really had (the music) in my head the whole time.”

In preparation, Molloy focused on the first installment of Martin Brest’s franchise in 1984, Scott’s sequel in 1987 and other action films from the ’70s and ’80s, but he intentionally avoided the unaired CBS pilot in 2013 and the 1994 one. Beverly Hills Cop III. In the latter’s case, Molloy helped craft a light-hearted jab at the franchise’s least popular installment, as Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Detective Bobby Abbott remarked, “Not Your Finest Hour,” in reference to Axel’s 1994 escapades.

“I had a lot of input into that. I just thought it would be a really fun little moment for fans of the franchise where we would give each other a nod,” Molloy says. “I’ve never seen (Beverly Hills Cop III), and neither did Jerry. When I arrived, I said to Jerry, “I didn’t see Beverly Hills Cop III. And he said, “I didn’t do it, so you don’t need to see it.”

Axel FThe show’s most significant change of pace comes courtesy of Jane Saunders, played by Taylour Paige, Axel’s estranged daughter. In the 2013 pilot from writer Shawn Ryan and director Barry Sonnenfeld, Axel’s son Aaron (Brandon T. Jackson) toyed with the idea that the apple never falls far from the tree. Young Foley had his father’s gift of speech and survival skills, but Jane couldn’t be more different from Axel. She’s one of the few characters in the franchise who’s completely immune to Axel’s charisma.

“She’s his kryptonite. She can see right through him, and all his Axel Foley stuff doesn’t work on her,” Molloy says. “So that’s what really excited me, and when we were casting this role, it wasn’t about trying to copy Axel from a comedic standpoint. We already have Eddie Murphy. We don’t need to put Eddie Murphy against Eddie Murphy. And when I saw Taylour Paige in ZolaI saw a spark in his eyes and a strength of character that I thought could rival Eddie’s.

Below, from a recent conversation with THRMolloy also discusses some of the film’s cameos, before explaining what he misses most about action movies from the ’70s and ’80s.

So how does an Australian director go from Apple to Axel as a first feature film as a director?

It’s pretty surreal to begin with. I had been doing a lot of commercial work, and then my agent called me one day and said, “Jerry Bruckheimer wants to talk to you on the phone.” And I said, “I want to talk to Jerry Bruckheimer on the phone.”Laughs.) And then Jerry said he’d love to do a movie together, and I said I’d love to do that too. So he sent me a bunch of scripts, and I actually said no to all of them. They didn’t seem like a good fit, but he sent me Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. And after 20 pages, I was like, “Oh, I’m in. I love this.” And then there were a lot of meetings to convince me that I was the right man for the job. Jerry really believed in me, but I had to really talk to Eddie and Netflix to get everyone on board. That’s how it happened.

Looking back, what aspect of your pitch probably resonated with everyone the most?

When I read the script, it had the DNA of a Beverly Hills Cop The movie was built into the movie and he was really sure of what he wanted to be. But reading it, I wanted to go back to the well and bring it to life as an ’80s action comedy. My whole point was, ‘I really love those first two movies. I’m inspired not only by those movies, but by that era of cinema, and I want to bring that into a modern world.’

The other big thing that I really liked about the script that was part of my pitch was getting to see a whole different side of Axel. It’s been 40 years since the first one came out, and there’s this whole emotional undercurrent to the movie that shows us a different side of Axel. So I really liked the idea of ​​being able to evolve the franchise with Axel FYou continue to give people what they want, but you also surprise them with something they didn’t expect.

In the 80s and 90s, many filmmakers made the jump from commercials to music videos, including Beverly Hills Cop II director Tony Scott. I don’t hear this story as often these days, but do you think there’s still an active pipeline between commercials and feature films?

There are certainly others that I can think of, but I don’t think it’s as prevalent as it used to be. There are so many commercial directors out there, and I don’t know if there were as many back then. So to follow – not that I follow – or be in the same footsteps as Tony Scott is very humbling. From Tony Scott to Michael Bay, Jerry has always been an advocate for that transition.

Shooting at magic hour is a common feature of Jerry’s films, but it was certainly a staple of Tony Scott’s as well. Your own use of magic hour in Axel F a wink to him?

It wasn’t so much about shooting at magic hour, but more about the way Tony captured Los Angeles and Beverly Hills. There was such a sense of character, and so I really wanted to try to capture that same sense of character. But Los Angeles is not as hazy as it was in the ’80s. There’s this haze that’s so prevalent in Beverly Hills Cop IIbut Los Angeles doesn’t have that same layer of haze anymore.

Overall, it seems that Axel F pays homage to the first film more than anything else. Do you agree with that?

Yeah, I really liked the balance of comedy and action that Marty (Brest) had in the first movie. It was even more character-driven than the second movie, and that was something I wanted to do as well. There are some really iconic moments in that first movie, and we were looking to use the nostalgia of those moments more than Beverly Hills Cop II. Beverly Hills Cop II In fact, I revisited some of those iconic moments themselves.Laughs.)

When it comes to directing Eddie Murphy, do you just clear the stage and roll the camera?

A lot of my job was to create the right environment and space for Eddie to work his magic. I really thought about every scene, the blocking and casting the right actors opposite Eddie. We worked a lot on the script to give Eddie a clear direction on where he wanted to go with each scene, but then we gave him the space to take it where he wanted to go. So a lot of it came down to preparation, and a lot of my pitch to Eddie was to ask him, “Who is Axel Foley now? How have the last 40 years affected him?” So Eddie was very attached to that, and we didn’t want to pretend that time hadn’t passed. We didn’t want to pretend that Axel was still 20 years old. He’s a father now, and a lot of things have changed. So I talked to Eddie a lot about that perspective early on, but he has a very strong sense of who Axel was and who he is now.

A little over a decade ago, Eddie and his friends filmed a pilot centered on Axel’s son, Aaron Foley (Brandon T. Jackson). Ever wonder why they chose to focus on a girl (Jane Saunders, played by Taylor Paige)?

No, I never dug into that,…