'Beverly Hills Cop 4' seemed like one of those things that was fun to think about -- like 'Dredd 2' -- but would probably never happen. While rumors of it moving forward have been circulating the web for some time, Paramount has revealed that, yes, this will officially happen and has been given a release date for 2016.

Paramount announced today (via ERC Box Office) that 'Beverly Hills Cop 4' is currently scheduled to hit theaters on March 25, 2016. The film will return Eddie Murphy to his famous role of Axel Foley under the direction of Brett Ratner.

The project had been stuck in development hell for some time. If you remember, a TV series, featuring 'Percy Jackson' star Brandon T. Jackson in the leading role of Axel Foley's son as he policed the wealthy side of Hollywood, was in development but ultimately did not move forward. However, its cancellation brought back talks of bringing the long-rumored 'Beverly Hills Cop 4' to the big screen once again, and Paramount is ready to proceed.

While there's no official word from the studio as of yet, Jerry Bruckheimer, who worked on the first two 'Beverly Hills Cop' movies, is returning as a producer on 'Beverly Hills Cop 4,' and Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec of 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' have written the most recent draft.

Prior to the announcement, Bruckheimer said of 'Beverly Hills Cop 4':

Paramount is very excited about making it, Eddie is very excited, Brett Ratner is excited about doing it, so I think we're moving forward. Hopefully we'll start end of summer, beginning of fall and get rolling on it. We're going to take Eddie back to Detroit - he's going to be in Beverly Hills and we take him to Detroit. So we're going to have some fun with him, he's really excited about doing it.

The original 'Beverly Hills Cop' movies saw Eddie Murphy as Axel Foley, a Detroit cop whose murder investigation leads him to Beverly Hills, a world he hysterically tries to get used to. The third installment was released way back in 1994 and didn't perform as well as its predecessors.

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