Axel F Hits 41 Million Views, Tops Netflix Movies Chart in Debut

Maybe Eddie Murphy will get the green light on his fifth turn as Axel Foley?

Netflix’s Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, which premiered the day before the Fourth of July, racked up 41 million viewers in its debut. This impressive start placed it at the top of the streaming giant’s English Movies chart for the week of July 1. Netflix calculates a “view” by dividing the total minutes watched by the running time of the movie.

Running just under two hours, the 40-year-old franchise’s third sequel has Murphy’s Detroit police detective Axel Foley rushing to Los Angeles when his daughter Jane’s life is threatened. Jane, a criminal defense attorney, is under fire for representing someone accused of killing a cop. However, both her client and a lead pursued by Beverly Hills PD vet Billy Rosewood, now a private investigator, indicate that there is more to the story.

In addition to Murphy and Reinhold, franchise veterans John Ashton, Paul Reiser, and Bronson Pinchot also make appearances. Ashton returns as Taggart, now an LAPD police chief, Reiser as Jeffrey, who is Axel’s superior at the Detroit PD, and Pinchot reprises his role as the quirky Serge. New faces include Taylour Paige as Jane Saunders, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as LAPD Detective Bobby Abbott, and Kevin Bacon as the leader of a narcotics task force.

TVLine reviewed Axel F and awarded it a “C+” grade, while the average grade from TVLine readers was a solid “B.”

In its second week on the platform, A Family Affair, featuring Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, and Joey King, secured the second spot after last week’s top ranking with 27 million views. This week, it added another 31.9 million views.

The Jessica Alba action-thriller Trigger Warning, which generated 26 million views during its debut week, added another 8 million views in Week 2, landing it in third place.