It had been 17 years since last we saw the action-packed escapades of the Bad Boys Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett in director Michael Bay's Bad Boys II, and since then no one truly believed we would ever see them again. Bad Boys for Life had been gestating for a long time, and it has now been revealed that star Will Smith has been pitching ideas for years, with one of them making it into the finished product almost exactly as he had envisioned.
"We started pushing Sony about two or three years after Bad Boys II came out to start developing a new one. I got a phone call from Will, he was on the Great Wall of China shooting The Karate Kid with Jayden. That was 2009, and he pitched a scene where he and Martin break up. It's basically word-for-word what we shot a couple weeks ago."
This comes from producer Chad Oman, who has been a long time colleague of Jerry Bruckheimer and has served as a producer on many of his movies, including both Bad Boys sequels. His insight into the creative process of Will Smith comes courtesy of the special features which are attached to the new digital release of Bad Boys for Life.
Oman states that the attempts to get a third movie made began only a couple of years after Bad Boys II had been released, and that all the way back in 2009, Will Smith began coming up with ideas that were so good they would feature in the finished movie 11 years later. Not only that, but he thought of the idea of Lowery and Burnett falling out whilst half a world away, with this idea then becoming the core of the movie and guiding the direction of Bad Boys for Life.
Nobody really expected to see the bickering cops ever again, but, against all odds, their adventures continued on in the recently released Bad Boys For Life, a movie which, to everyone's surprise, has gone to be the best-reviewed entry in the franchise.
Bad Boys for Life picks up with the duo after the wife and son of a Mexican drug lord embark on a vengeful quest to kill all those involved in his trial and imprisonment -- including Miami Detective Mike Lowrey. When Mike gets wounded, he teams up with partner Marcus Burnett and AMMO -- a special tactical squad -- to bring the culprits to justice. But the old-school, wisecracking cops must soon learn to get along with their new elite counterparts if they are to take down the vicious cartel that threatens their lives.
The movie is directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah and written by Chris Bremner, Peter Craig, and Joe Carnahan. The sequel to Bad Boys II (2003), it is the third installment in the Bad Boys franchise and is based on a story by Craig and Carnahan. The film stars Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Charles Melton, Paola Núñez, Kate del Castillo, Nicky Jam, and Joe Pantoliano.
Bad Boys for Life is available now on Digital and will hit Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K on April 21. The movie was released by Sony Pictures.