Remember the days before Eddie Murphy starting churning out family comedy after family comedy? Those days could soon be returning. Paramount are looking for writers for Beverly Hills Cop 4, and Murphy is attached (currently only as producer, but we'll see) to The Misadventures of Fluffy. Which is not what it sounds like.

Fluffy is, at the moment, developing as an R-rated comedy, again for Paramount. Sam Pitman and Adam Cole-Kelly (behind Tyler Perry's mooted The Diversification of Noah Miller) are currently writing the script, which is reportedly a social buddy-comedy a la Trading Places, about a journey across New York. Featuring talking animals.

Talking animals have worked for Murphy before of course, to the tune of half a billion in box office for the Dr Doolittle films. But this sounds like rather a different proposition, and we hope to see him in front of the camera on this one, as well as behind it. It sounds weird certainly, but a bit of risk-taking from Murphy wouldn't go amiss. If it misfires, there's still Shrek Forever After and A Thousand Words to fall back on.