In the new ‘Beverly Hills Cop’, Detroit’s role goes far beyond Lions jacket

Netflix film keeps the franchise’s ties to the Motor City strong.

The first voice you hear in the new “Beverly Hills Cop” film is that of Bushman, the longtime WJLB-FM (97.9) anchorman, who is on the radio from a car being driven through Detroit by Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley.

WJLB is well represented on screen – Foley wears a yellow WJLB T-shirt for much of the film’s running time – and the Motor City’s presence is palpable in “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F,” the fourth film in the ‘Beverly Hills’ series. Cop” franchise, which hits Netflix on July 3.

To wit: The film’s opening scene takes place during a Detroit Red Wings game at Little Caesars Arena, there are shots of Detroit landmarks from the Renaissance Center to Joe Louis’ fist sculpture to Lafayette and America’s Coney Islands, and Foley continually jokes about the city his character has long called home.

Though only a fictional character, Foley is one of Detroit’s favorite sons — as important to the city’s on-screen lineage as his fellow police officer “Robocop” or Eminem’s “8 Mile” character, B-Rabbit — and ‘Axel F’. puts him back on screen for the first time in 30 years.

The original “Beverly Hills Cop” was a huge hit when it hit theaters in December 1984. It topped the box office for 14 weeks, with grosses of $234 million — that’s about $700 million in today’s dollars — and almost single-handedly ushered in the action-comedy genre. It also made Eddie Murphy a box office superstar, and his quick-witted Detroit cop would return for two sequels, in 1987 and 1994.

“Beverly Hills Cop” has a long Detroit tail: the original film opens with a chase scene through the city, Foley’s Detroit Lions varsity jacket has become iconic in its own right, and the film features former Detroit Police Department Commander Gil Hill. from Foley’s superiors. (Hill, who died in 2016 at age 84, is seen in the new film in a photo on the wall of Paul Reiser’s office.)

Bushman, who also starred in “8 Mile,” was surprised when he was asked to collaborate on the new film.

“My reaction was, oh my God, is this real?” says Bushman, who goes by his full name in the film as Jonathan “Bushman” Dunnings. “I was excited to be a part of something that I believe is historic.”

Bushman knew Detroit from “Beverly Hills Cop” before coming to the city from North Carolina in 1995, but he didn’t know Mumford High School actually existed until he arrived in town. (In the original 1984 film, Foley wears a Mumford High sweatshirt.)

“I’ve always loved the original movie, and I’ve always loved the character of Axel Foley,” says Bushman, who recorded his audio for the film about six weeks ago at Ozone Music & Sound in Southfield. “I always thought he was really cool.”

Bushman wondered about the yellow WJLB T-shirt that Foley wears in the film, saying that in his 29 years at the station, to his knowledge, a yellow T-shirt with the logo of the station on it.

That’s because the T-shirt was created by costume designer Nancy Steiner, who also designed the faux-vintage baby blue WLLZ-FM (98.7) shirt that Foley wears in the film. (It’s high time for vintage Detroit shirts in pop culture; in the new season of Amazon Prime Video’s “The Boys,” a character wears an old-fashioned Palace of Auburn Hills T-shirt.)

Steiner, whose credits include “Promising Young Woman,” “Lost in Translation” and TV’s “Twin Peaks: The Return,” worked with Grace LaVier, a shopper for the film who is from Detroit, who helped consult on brands and companies in Detroit that Foley’s character would identify with. (In the film, Foley also wears a red T-shirt from Jolly Bar, a former bar on East Davison in Detroit.)

Though the film is set primarily in Los Angeles, Steiner says she used the T-shirts “to bring that connection to Detroit.” And they also lend Foley a kind of timeless cool.

“For me, I wanted to make Axel look youthful, but only up to a point. You don’t want to make him look weird,” she says. “He’s not a fussy dresser. He’s someone who’s comfortable in his own skin. He can wear what he’s comfortable in. And he’s an iconic figure, so I didn’t want to stray too far from how we’ve seen him before.”

Foley still proudly supports his lions; he’s wearing a blue vintage Lions sweatshirt that Steiner was able to find online, as well as an updated version of his classic Detroit Lions varsity jacket.

There was talk of Foley wearing a reproduction of the original jacket, “but we decided it shouldn’t be that old because that means he’s had it for 40 years and it would be really worn out,” Steiner says. The new jacket, which “doesn’t exist in the world” and was custom made for Murphy, modernizes Foley’s style. “I wanted it to look a little fresher and more modern,” she says.

Murphy, 63, did have some say in his character’s wardrobe, Steiner says, and vetoed at least one look he was shown: a vintage-looking radio station T-shirt that he didn’t think his character would listen to. But for the most part, “we were very lucky,” she says. “He liked most of the stuff we brought him, so it wasn’t a big struggle.”

Steiner says there were discussions about Foley bringing back the Mumford T-shirt from the first film, but ultimately she decided against it. (The Detroit high school is also the alma mater of producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who wanted it in the film, Steiner says.)

“I turned around and thought, does he really have to wear the same thing he wore 40 years ago? I just didn’t think it was necessary,” she says. “I thought, it’s Axel, people know who he is, we don’t need to bring back those same things. We need to put him in the present, we need to make him a little bit more modern. So for me, that felt right.”

There are other ways in which the film harkens back to the past. The cast reunites Murphy with his “Beverly Hills Cop” costars Reiser, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton and Bronson Pinchot. Franchise newcomers include Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Kevin Bacon, Taylour Paige and Luis Guzman.

And the ‘Axel F’ soundtrack is full of throwback songs, including Glenn Frey’s ‘The Heat is On’, the Pointer Sisters’ ‘Neutron Dance’, Bob Seger’s ‘Shakedown’ (from ‘Beverly Hills Cop II’) and composer Harold. Faltermeyer’s instantly recognizable “Axel F” score.

Although he’s seen driving around town and mixing everything in the Detroit Red Wings locker room, Murphy was never in Detroit for the shoot, and the scene in the Wings locker room is a set. Chalk it up to movie magic. (Six days took place in Detroit in November and December 2022.)

Although the majority of the action takes place in LA, one of Steiner’s goals was to ensure that Detroit’s presence was felt in the film.

“That’s where (Foley) lives, that’s where he’s from, and I really wanted to incorporate that into the film,” she says. “I wanted Detroit people to have a connection with the movie.”

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‘Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F’

Rated R: for language, violence and short-term drug use

Running time: 115 minutes

On Netflix Wednesday

Netflix film keeps the franchise’s ties to the Motor City strong.

‘Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F’

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