Beverly Hills Cop IV

First it was Arnold in TERMINATOR 3. Then Bruce Willis in LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD. Stallone in ROCKY BALBOA and JOHN RAMBO. Harrison Ford in INDY.

And now, according to this article in Variety, Eddie Murphy in BEVERLY HILLS COP IV.

All of the franchises I grew up with are coming back for one more go around.

I'm cool with that. I really liked DIE HARD and RAMBO, and I fucking loved ROCKY. T3 was... I dunno, I didn't hate it, but it was just okay. And I haven't seen INDY yet. Yeah, yeah... I know, I'm losing geek cred, but the reviews and word of mouth weren't strong enough for me to battle the Memorial Day crowds. I'll catch it next week.

But the common denominator of the original franchises were: most of them were rated-R. I saw a lot of them when I was a kid, and somehow managed to survive the experience with psyche intact. This includes the BH movies.

Now... Brett Ratner is negotiating to direct, he of the RUSH HOUR franchise fame, which are in a lot of ways the PG-13 versions of Eddie Murphy movies. Though all of the signs point against it -- I'm not exactly holding my breath here -- I really hope they take a page from Stallone's book and give us an old school Eddie Murphy movie, with sex, violence and "fuck" every other word.

There's enough vegetables in the world. We need some more red meat.