Why 'Beverly Hills Cop 4' will be bigger than 'Top Gun: Maverick'

The sequel to the 1986 blockbuster (with Cruise playing the role Pete "Maverick" Mitchell once again) has crossed the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office.

Cruise's more than 40-year career has never witnessed such a stunning success, the movie is so successful that it is the second-highest-grossing film in Paramount's long history in terms of domestic figures, behind only 1997's "Titanic."

It has grossed more than $520 million domestically and more than $468 million overseas.

It is the 50th film in history to make more than $1 billion at the global box office, not accounting for inflation.

Tom Cruise as Maverick Pulse

The film is partly being driven by nostalgia as the movie ticket buyers are largely 35 years old and above.

Hence another movie which made an even bigger box office splash in the 80s will surely ride on this nostalgia to a become an even bigger office draw.

That movie will be the fourth installment of Beverly Hills Cop, starring Eddie Murphy of course.

Sure, Beverly Hills Cop 3 was a tremendous flop. Murphy himself called it “Garbage” (the capital G was his).

However, the power of the franchise will see it through to being an even bigger hit than Top Gun: Maverick owing partly to the fact that Top Gun was a hit in 1986, while Beverly Hills Cop cast a worldwide spell in 1984.

“Everybody seems to love it. Old folks, young folks, men, women. I imagine that even cops in Beverly Hills love it,” wrote newspaper columnist DL Stewart when it came out.

“When it first came out, friends used to call me in the middle of the night to urge me to go and see it. Strangers stopped me on the street to tell me how great it is.”

A scene from the first Beverly Hills Cop Pulse

Plus, fans kept going back to watch the movie.

“Me and my friend Fred Barton, we saw Beverly Hills Cop three times the first day it came out,” says comedian Chris Rock, who would make his movie debut in the sequel.

“We just wouldn’t leave. Doing a movie twice was normal. We did 48 Hrs. twice, we did Trading Places twice, but this one we did three times. It was like, ‘Whoa!’”

It became a cultural phenomenon in ways that few films have been able to and it made Murphy the biggest movie star in the world, at the time.

Interestingly, Don Simpson and his producing partner Jerry Bruckheimer produced Beverly Hills and Top Gun (both films). So the possibilities here are endless.

If the fourth installment of Beverly Hills Cop is as well executed as Maverick, then it will combine the power of nostalgia with electrifying viewing and cultural Oomph to sprint across the 1-billion-dollar finish line to the glory of being a bigger film than Maverick