Beverly Hills Cop is a buddy cop movie with a fish out of water protagonist that is equal parts action and comedy. For every gun fight and car chase there are jokes and physical comedy, delivered by a great comedian and talented cast. The movie was released in theaters 40 years ago on December 5, 1984, and quickly became a modern classic that spawned many imitators.

The movie stars Eddie Murphy (who had had recent successes in 48 Hours and Trading Places) as Detroit cop Axel Foley. He is constantly joking and rubbing higher ranking officers the wrong way, but is also a very smart, keen observer. When a childhood friend is killed, the Detroit cop heads to Beverly Hills to find his killer. It doesn’t take long for the unorthodox cop to irritate the Beverly Hills Police Department, and Sergeant John Taggart (John Ashton) and Detective Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) are assigned to keep an eye on him. In between getting into trouble and stressing out his chaperones, Axel uncovers a major drug operation that is connected to his friend’s death.

Beverly Hills Cop went through several iterations on its way to becoming the action-comedy directed by Martin Brest, who went on to helm Midnight Run and Scent of a Woman. Paramount executive Don Simpson had the original idea which was about a cop from East LA transferring to Beverly Hills. Writer Danilo Bach was brought in to write a script, and he wrote a straight up action film.

The movie was shelved for a few years, then Daniel Petrie Jr. was hired to rewrite the script. He added humor and tweaked the story so that Axel was from Detroit. Mickey Rourke was considered for the part and Martin Scorsese was potentially going to direct.

Sylvester Stallone was brought onto the project, and he did a massive rewrite. Stallone’s version was a hardcore action movie with the humor cut out, Rosewood died midway through the movie, Jenny Summers became a love interest, and his murdered friend became his brother. Simpson and fellow producer Jerry Bruckheimer did not agree with Stallone’s version, and they parted ways.

Simpson and Bruckheimer reached out to Murphy, and massive rewrites were done by Petrie and Danilo Bach with several jokes written by Murphy. The movie was made on a $14 million budget, and made over $15 million in just its first five days in theaters. It was the No. 1 movie for 13 weeks in a row, eventually becoming the highest grossing film of 1984. That’s enough to make anyone do the “Neutron Dance.”