Filmmakers Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah broke through a few years ago as directors of “Bad Boys for Life,” the third entry in the action franchise that revived the property after nearly twenty years.
That film would go on to earn more than $426 million worldwide and was enough of a success it pushed Sony to give the go-ahead for a fourth film which took a few years to coalesce.
In the meantime, Arbi and Fallah went on to other projects including Warners’ scrapped “Batgirl” film, episodes of “Ms. Marvel,” and the upcoming indie film “Rebel”. The pair then returned to direct “Bad Boys 4” which had begun filming in April and then was paused in July when the actor’s strike shut everything down.
Speaking on a podcast with The Playlist, the pair tease that the currently untitled new film doesn’t have a title yet but one thing it does have is a decidedly lighter tone than the last one:
“Well, you know, the title that we like – I don’t know that they’re going to go for it yet – would be like ‘Bad Boys Ride or Die’ because ‘Bad Boys 4 Life’ is already taken. We didn’t know there was going to be a fourth one, you know?
But yeah, what’s going to happen in this one is, I think that there’s going to be way more comedy. The third one had the dramatic tone. With this one, it’s really our purpose to get people laughing and having a good time in the theater. Martin [Lawrence] is going to a higher level in this one. This is the culmination of the Marcus Burnett arc.”
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence reprise their roles of Mike Lowery and Marcus Burnett respectively. Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, and Paola Nunez reprise their roles from the third film as members of the AMMO team. Eric Dane will play the villain whilst John Salley, DJ Khaled, Rhea Seehorn and Ioan Gruffudd co-star.
For now, the film is currently sitting on a June 14th 2024 release date.
