Picture 1984’s Beverly Hills Cop and you’ve got any number of images or sounds that made it one of the funniest movies of the decade – if not ever. But it wasn’t always supposed to be that way. Now try to picture Sylvester Stallone doing anything that Eddie Murphy did – we love Sly, but his comedy outings aren’t exactly classics. Early on, Stallone was actually attached to be the lead in Beverly Hills Cop. Fortunately, it wasn’t yet a comedy, only morphing into one once Murphy came on board. Prior to that, it was a straight-up action flick that had Stallone written all over it – well, an early draft did, at least.
While Daniel Petrie Jr. had his original version of the Beverly Hills Cop script just how he wanted it, Sylvester Stallone came in and rewrote it to make it fit his brand, turning the movie into a more action-oriented flick than ever intended. This 115-page draft – which you can read here – was submitted on March 30th, 1984 – just two months before filming with Eddie Murphy took place.
For Stallone, making Beverly Hills Cop his own was imperative. Even the name “Foley” was too corny for Stallone, who changed it to Cobretti, which you probably noticed was the same surname used in 1986’s Cobra, which Stallone also wrote and borrows heavily from his draft. And while some other obvious changes were made, there’s not a whole lot in Stallone’s Beverly Hills Cop script that is structurally or narratively different. Look, Stallone may have gotten an Oscar nomination for Rocky but writing has never been his strongest asset.
In a review of Sylver Stallone’s Beverly Hills Cop script, the folks at ScriptShadow summed it up: “I have to say that while this script doesn’t work as well as the comedy version, it’s still solid. The structure is there. And while we don’t laugh as much, we’re more emotionally invested because of the slaughtering of his brother.” For reference, Michael isn’t Axel’s childhood friend as we saw in the actual Beverly Hills Cop but rather his brother, adding more weight to Axel’s drive.
The clearest change, really, is the dramatic and emotional heft that Stallone wanted to bring to Beverly Hills Cop, something that he always did like incorporating into his movies – even the dumb ones. But could Beverly Hills Cop have worked as a drama? Probably. Would we have remembered it as a classic of the cop-action genre? Not likely.
How do you think Sylvester Stallone’s Beverly Hills Cop would have turned out? Check out the script and let us know!