'Beverly Hills Cop 4' to 'be direct sequel'

The makers of Beverly Hills Cops 4 plan the movie as a direct sequel to the 1984 original, it has been reported.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura was hired to produce the proposed project in 2006 by Paramount to work on the action-comedy.

According to Moviehole, he is to completely discard any correlation to follow-ups released in 1987 and 1994, respectively. The latter instalment, directed by John Landis, was a failure with critics and audiences alike.

Original cast members Judge Reinhold and John Ashton are said to reprise their roles as Det Billy Rosewood and Sgt John Taggart alongside star Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley. Ashton was unable to appear in the third film in the series, due to scheduling conflicts.

Wanted writers Derek Haas and Michael Brandt have retooled their speculative script Dying Day, about two FBI agents in Los Angeles who discover their office is corrupt.

"Like with the first Beverly Hills Cop, we're writing a straight up action movie that works as a police thriller," Haas told the website in June. "Then Eddie Murphy is going to come in later and point out where he thinks he can riff. We haven't gotten to that point yet."

Director Bret Ratner recently said that the update would not be toned down and would most likely receive "a hard R", which refers to the movie's probable US rating classification. He also said that the 'IV' would be dropped from the title, as he planned to reboot the franchise.