Paramount Demands the Immediate Removal of Vulture’s Fake ‘Beverly Hills Cop IV’ Script

Kate Gilmore’s Between a Hard Place (2008)

Yesterday, Latino Review posted a report on a leaked draft of a screenplay for Beverly Hills Cop IV (apparently it still needs a little polishing). Predictably, Paramount freaked out and persuaded them to remove their post (it’s still cached on Google here). Hilariously, Vulture also got a takedown notice from the studio about one of our posts — “Vulture Exclusive! Brett Ratner’s Script for ‘Beverly Hills Cop 4’ Revealed!” “Despite Paramount’s clear rights to the Paramount Properties,” writes a Paramount lawyer in an e-mail received last night, “Paramount has learned that you are reproducing, displaying and distributing portions of the Beverly Hills Cop IV script on your website.” Who could possibly have imagined that, when we sat down to write a fake copy of the screenplay as a joke this past June, we would’ve imagined the exact same dialogue, scene headings, camera directions, and page numbers as Michael Brandt and Derek Haas, the actual Paramount-hired authors of the leaked BHC4 script? Quite a coincidence!

The takedown notice is as follows:

This letter is being written to you on behalf of Paramount Pictures Corporation (hereinafter “Paramount”). Paramount is the owner of rights in and to the Beverly Hills Cop motion picture series, including but not limited to the screenplay for Beverly Hills Cop IV (hereinafter collectively referred to as “Paramount Properties”). No one is authorized to copy, reproduce, distribute, or otherwise use the Paramount Properties without the express written permission of Paramount.

Despite Paramount’s clear rights to the Paramount Properties, Paramount has learned that you are reproducing, displaying and distributing portions of the Beverly Hills Cop IV script on your website at http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/06/vulture_exclusive_brett_ratner.html. You are hereby put on notice that the reproduction, display and/or distribution by you of Paramount Properties constitutes copyright infringement as well as an unauthorized misappropriation of a protected corporate document. Further, your conduct would constitute an improper receipt of a corporate document.

Paramount hereby demands that you immediately remove all portions of the Beverly Hills Cop IV script from your website.


We will take this under advisement. Also, we are really looking forward to the scene with the monkeys.

Earlier: Vulture Exclusive! Brett Ratner’s Script for ‘Beverly Hills Cop 4’ Revealed!

Paramount Demands the Immediate Removal of Vulture’s Fake ‘Beverly Hills Cop IV’ Script