judge reinhold - The Screengrab

Precursors: Vice Versa (1988)

She's worried about your unit, dad!

Yesterday's Hits: The Santa Clause (1994, John Pasquin)

Well, it’s the holidays again, and that means that Christmas movies are back in season. But while Christmas movies have long been an annual tradition, in the last few decades the market for new holiday-themed classics has grown by leaps and bounds. Gone are the days when scruffy little movies like A Christmas Story would do decent business in theatres only to become classics on video and cable. Today, Christmas movies are big business, and rare is the big budget holiday movie that doesn’t clean up at the box office. For my next three Yesterday’s Hits columns, I’ll be taking a new look at three of the biggest holiday hits of all time, to get you all in the spirit of the season. This week, I’ll begin with the 1994 blockbuster The Santa Clause.

Eddie Murphy Exhumes “Beverly Hill Cop”

There must be some sort of misunderstanding. See, the other day I wrote about reviving another '80s action hero in the wake of successful return visits from Rambo and Indiana Jones. But I was talking about Mad Max. Some signals must have gotten crossed because I definitely didn’t mean Beverly Hills Cop.

Yet here it is in Variety: “On the heels of the successful revival of the Indiana Jones franchise, Paramount has set in motion a fourth installment of Beverly Hills Cop. Eddie Murphy is attached to reprise his role as Detroit detective Axel Foley, and Brett Ratner is negotiating to direct.”

Whose bright idea was this?