Martin Lawrence confirms Bad Boys 3 is firmly in development hell.
It’s fair to say that the proposed Bad Boys 3 is comfortably dwelling in development Hell. First of all Sony pushed its release date back to late 2018 in February this year and this was then followed by director/writer Joe Carnahan walking from the project in March. Now it appears it’s probably not going to happen at all with one of its stars, Martin Lawrence revealing that he now thinks that the film is essentially dead in the water due to his co-star Will Smith’s busy schedule. This came after Sony Pictures dropped the film altogether from its release schedule. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Lawrence said this about the proposed third film in the series,
“I don’t think we’re going to get one, not the way everything’s turning out. Will is off doing another movie, and I don’t think it’s going to happen. I’m there, I’m ready right now. If they wanted to do it, I’m ready, but I don’t have control of that. That’s the studio’s decision.”
Sony Pictures had initially announced in August 2015 that not only were there plans for a third film, but also a fourth, with the third film carrying the title “Bad Boys 3: Bad Boys for Life.”
The initial release date for the movie was given by Sony as January 12th 2018, with Carnahan being brought in to write and direct the movie, but the director expressed difficulty in getting the project off the ground stating that he wanted to get Will Smith, Martin Lawrence and producer Jerry Bruckheimer in a room together to make sure everyone was on the same page with the script, but cited after his departure, that this proved difficult as Will Smith was tied up with his commitment to Suicide Squad. Carnahan has also stated that his vision for the script would be “a modern take on the main characters” and that his film would easily be “the best of the franchise.”
He went on to claim in another interview that Bad Boys 3 would be R-rated, with multiple villains, but it appears that with Laurence’s latest assessment of the current state of affairs, that we may now never get to see the further adventures of Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence).
The first film in the franchise was released in 1995 and marked the directorial debut for Michael Bay, proving box office hit making $141.4 million worldwide from a $19 million budget. It’s 2003 sequel took $273.3 million worldwide from a $130 million dollar budget.
It was initially reported that the film was off the radar when Smith was linked to a live action Dumbo remake by Disney. Smith eventually passed on that but has since signed on for Disney’s live action remake of Aladdin, taking on the role of the genie who was originally voiced by the late Robin Williams in the 1992 animated feature.