The official trailer for Bad Boys for Life has arrived. Released in 1995, the original Bad Boys was a hit buddy cop action-comedy that made bigger names out of stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, in addition to then first-time feature director Michael Bay. A sequel in the form of Bad Boys II was released eight years after, but it's taken even longer to get a third Bad Boys movie (now officially titled Bad Boys for Life) off the ground at Sony, with various factors to blame for the holdup.
After an earlier iteration of the project by Smokin' Aces and The Grey filmmaker Joe Carnahan was scrapped due to creative differences between Smith and Carnahan, Bad Boys for Life finally began filming at the top of this year, with Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (Gangster) calling the shots, and Smith and Lawrence returning to their roles as Michael "Mike" Lowery and Marcus Burnett. And with its January 2020 release date about four months away now, the sequel is getting its marketing machine up and running this week.
Sony officially released the Bad Boys for Life trailer online today, ahead of its premiere in theaters this weekend. You can check it out in the space below.
Storywise, the Bad Boys for Life script (which Carnahan shares writing credit on with The Town's Peter Craig and relative newcomer Chris Bremner) finds Mike and Marcus at a crossroads, with Marcus wanting to retire and Mike struggling to decide whether he too should prepare to call it a day. Sony had announced plans to make a Bad Boys 4 back in 2015, but has since removed the film from its release schedule and is now positioning Bad Boys for Life as the conclusion to their franchise (Marcus and Mike even promise one another "One last time" in the trailer). That might be for the best, considering how it's already taken almost twenty-five years just to get two Bad Boys sequels made. Of course, if Bad Boys for Life is a hit at the box office, that idea could quickly be thrown out the window (as something like Fast & Furious has shown in the past).
Beyond that, Arbi and Fallah are clearly evoking Bay's filmmaking style with their approach on Bad Boys for Life. If one didn't know better, they might even assume the movie was directed by Bay, based on the trailer's shots of shiny vehicles, stylishly lit environments, and Mike and Marcus causing a whole lot of property damage in their pursuit of justice. Joe Pantoliano is also back as the pair's ever-disapproving Captain Conrad Howard, with Alexander Ludwig (Vikings), Charles Melton (Riverdale), and Vanessa Hudgens later showing up in this trailer as three younger detectives who aid Marcus and Mike on their latest operation. But are audiences excited to see the original Bad Boys back together one (maybe) final time, with a trio of wise-cracking whipper snappers in tow? We'll find out when Bad Boys for Life arrives next January.
Source: Sony
