Axel F retrospective trailer cut by the editor who made the original in 1984

EXCLUSIVE: It’s no coincidence that a new Netflix trailer Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F It looks and sounds a lot like the trailer for the original 1984 movie starring Eddie Murphy.

That’s because it was directed by Benedict Coulter, the veteran editor who cut the first trailer for Beverly Hills Cop Forty years ago, while working for Kaleidoscope Films, Coulter, a frustrated musician who ended up working at one of those Hollywood trailer production companies, was one of the few artists making trailers for movies in the era of leg warmers, Michael Jackson lookalikes and the Pointer Sisters.

Coulter’s unique style was to make punchy teasers with unforgettable songs (he would later cut the trailer to Top Gun). Netflix was so taken with the way Coulter promoted Murphy’s standout performance that it asked Coulter to cut a special for the July 3 premiere. Axel F with one caveat: that he reprise the voiceover work of the late Don LaFontaine from Coulter’s other trailer for Beverly Hills Cop II and use it in the new flashback.

(The late Gene McGarr told the first Beverly Hills Cop trailer, but his dialogue was limited to “Eddie Murphy is a Detroit cop on vacation in Beverly Hills.” LaFontaine’s voiceover was much more serviceable for Coulter’s 2024 version as he stated, “Axel Foley is back, back where he doesn’t belong, reunited with his old buddies. The pressure is back!”)

“Don probably laughs and says, ‘I’ve been dead for 16 years and they’re still using my voice,’” said Coulter, who called LaFontaine’s widow to get permission to use her husband’s voice. “Trailers aren’t narrated anymore. They use charts and maps. You don’t really hear that old-school voiceover anymore. Things are much slicker, much more polished, with a lot of sound design and visual trickery. Mine were just explosive, full blast, with music. Stop, go, go.”

“The funny thing is, at first, I think the first two cuts I showed to the (Axel F) The director (Mark Molloy) said to me, “Wow, wow. I don’t know if that’s too much.” I said, “Well, that’s the style. That’s how they shot reels in the ’80s. They threw everything at you.”

Coulter still remembers the day at Kaleidoscope when she was asked to turn the Beverly Hills Cop trailer in less than 48 hours.

“I was kind of becoming the top editor at Kaleidoscope Films,” Coulter recalls. “I did a bunch of trailers that year for big movies. I was about to leave one Friday night when my bosses came up to me with a somber look and said, ‘We need your help. Are you available this weekend? We have this movie.’” Beverly Hills Cop “Another editor cut a trailer. It’s terrible, and Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer are coming to Kaleidoscope on Sunday to watch the trailer. We really need a trailer.”

“I said I would do it,” Coulter continued. “You have to remember, this was 1984, so we were working on film. I was working on my Moviola. There were 12 reels, separate picture and sound. The picture was black and white because the studios hadn’t spent the money to give us a color copy. So they made a black and white copy. And the sound was on a separate reel. At the very end of reel 12, where the end credits were, there was the song “Neutron Dance” by the Pointer Sisters, and it had a lot of energy. I said, “Well, great. I’ll just skip to that song.” So I didn’t have to go looking for music.”

“I started cutting it right away on Saturday and finished it pretty early on Sunday. Simpson and Bruckheimer came to Kaleidoscope, looked at it and freaked out and said, ‘This is fantastic.’ I think it was one of my few finishes of the first version. There was no reason to change anything.”

The 1984 trailer contains some of the film’s most memorable moments, like when Axel Foley first arrives in the 90210 area, when he gets thrown out the window of Victor Maitland’s apartment building, and when he’s dangling from the back of a speeding semi-truck. The new trailer has that same vibe, thanks to Murphy’s laugh, the sounds of the Pointer Sisters, and Judge Reinhold’s Billy going on a gun rampage (again).

RELATED: Judge Reinhold on Being Cast in the Original ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ Movie Before Eddie Murphy Signed On

“For me, it’s a really crazy adventure that reminds me of why I never stopped editing…opportunities like this come along,” continued Coulter, who now co-owns the advertising agency Rebel. “I had a lot of fun putting this together.”

Here’s the original trailer for Coulter, followed by the trailer for Beverly Hills Cop 2. See the flashback above.