While no footage was offered, Sony did take time in the CinemaCon presentation to tease the next installment in the “Bad Boys” franchise. Sony’s opening presentation featured Will Smith and Martin Lawrence stumbling through an intro with confusion about whether they were happy or unhappy not to be at CinemaCon.
The film is four weeks into shooting, and the brief joke pre-taped bit concluded with the stars introducing Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group President Josh Greenstein who came to the stage and bragged about 23 theatrical releases for the coming year, emphasizing a wide variety of movies beyond just conventional blockbusters.
“Bad Boys for Life” was the last super-duper blockbuster of the pre-COVID era, legging out to $206 million domestic from a $73 million Fri-Mon debut and earning $430 million worldwide on a $95 million budget. It was a shockingly well-received and successful film, which made a fourth installment inevitable.
Yes, last year’s Oscar ceremony, during which Will Smith walked to the stage and slapped presenter Chris Rock over a joke loosely related to Jada Pinkett Smith, made this film’s production a little more melodramatic. However, it was still a foregone conclusion. The only question was whether the fourth installment would come together faster than the third one, which opened 16.5 years after “Bad Boys II.”
Will Smith’s biggest issue is the same as it was before the 2022 Academy Awards, namely that he is only a bankable draw in established franchises like “Bad Boys” and “Men in Black” or as a major added value element in a franchise package like “Aladdin” or “Suicide Squad.” The danger is that the incident may have cost him the prestige that theoretically justified studios rolling the dice on films like “Concussion,” “Focus” and “King Richard.” Either way, Martin Lawrence wishes he had such problems.
