Some people might remember Bad Boys from 1995 and Bad Boys II from 2003. Both movies were action comedies that starred Martin Lawrence and Will Smith as members of the Miami P.D. who were responsible for investigating drug-related crimes. Neither movies were received well by the critics but nonetheless managed to make a fair amount of profit at the box office, which was the expected outcome based on their director having been Michael Bay of summer blockbuster fame. As a result, it should come as no surprise to learn that there has been a fair amount of interest in reviving the Bad Boys franchise by movie studios searching for commercial success without wanting to put themselves in too much risk in the process.
What Has Happened to the Bad Boys Franchise?
With that said, efforts to revive the Bad Boys franchise have been less than impressive to say the least. First and foremost, Bay pointed out in 2008 that the combination of his and Smith’s salaries represented a huge obstacle to the potential making of a Bad Boys 3 because that meant an enormous expense straight from the start. However, there have been movie studios interested in reviving the franchise in spite of that particular problem, as shown by the fact that a movie has been in development since 2009.
However, the closest that said efforts have come to reaching fruition was in August of 2015 when Sony Pictures Entertainment announced that Bad Boys III would be released in February of 2017 while Bad Boys IV would be released in July of 2019. Afterwards, this announcement was followed by announcements that Bad Boys III would be pushed back to June of 2017 and then January of 2018, which were combined with news of the director Joe Carnahan leaving and Martin Lawrence outright stating that he has doubts that said movie will ever be made. Combined with the fact that Sony Pictures Entertainment has removed Bad Boys III from its release schedule as of August of 2017, it seems pretty clear that movie and thus the franchise is dead for the time being.
Why Shouldn’t Bad Boys 3 Be Made?
Of course, whenever a movie franchise seems like it has the potential to be revived, there is the issue of whether it should be revived or not. In this case, an excellent argument can be made that the Bad Boys franchise should remain where it is. First, this is because the Bad Boys movies offered nothing special in the sense that they followed the generic outline of cop-buddy movies down to the line while using explosions and other visual spectacles to distract viewers whenever the plot began to sag.
Second, while a Bad Boys III could be interesting if it actually made good use of the acting talent of both Martin Lawrence and Will Smith by offering them something more than a cookie-cutter script, the numerous problems that have been revealed to the public over the course of its development suggests that even a cookie-cutter script might be too much to hope for. Summed up, there is no reason why the Bad Boys franchise should be revived, meaning that it might be best that it remains where it is until something better comes up, assuming that it ever does.
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