A few years back, it looked highly likely that Martin Lawrence and Will Smith would be reuniting for a third instalment in the Bad Boys franchise.
The threequel had a title (Bad Boys for Life), a writer and potential director in Joe Carnahan, and a planned release date of July 2017, which was pushed back to January 2018 and then November 2018.
However, earlier this year, Carnahan exited the project due to scheduling issues, while Sony pulled the film from its release slate last month, leading Martin Lawrence to state that he no longer believes a third entry in the action-comedy series is ever going to happen. Nevertheless, producer Jerry Bruckheimer remains confident, telling Yahoo! Movies that:
“Well, we’ve been developing it for I don’t know how many years now and we had a period of time where it got pretty close and then it drifted away a little bit and hopefully it will drift back again. We have a new writer on it who’s working on it right now, so that gives me encouragement.”
The first Bad Boys was released in 1995, with Bad Boys II following in 2003. Between them, the two movies grossed $414.7 million.
