20 Actors Who Quit Movies For Insane Reasons

8. He Wanted It To Be More Serious - Sylvester Stallone (Beverly Hills Cop)

Django Unchained Will Smith
Warner Bros.

Tough though it might be to believe, Beverly Hills Cop was originally set to be a star vehicle for Sylvester Stallone.

But when Sly came aboard, he rewrote the script to remove almost all traces of humour and rework it into a more generic action thriller, while renaming Detective Axel Foley to "Axel Cobretti."

However, producer Don Simpson didn't want to move forward with Stallone's proposed changes, preferring to stick to the more light-hearted original tone, and with the star unwilling to budge, there was no choice but for him to exit the project.

Stallone ended up leaving just two weeks before shooting was set to begin, at which point he used his rewrite as the basis for his 1986 actioner Cobra.

The production then scrambled to replace Stallone, bringing in Eddie Murphy who felt the current script "wasn't funny," resulting in frantic rewrites which were only completed the day before shooting started.

Everything worked out for the best in the end, at least, given that both Beverly Hills Cop and Cobra were sizable box office hits.

 
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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.