Will Smith teased it, Sony had long expressed an interest of reuniting Lowery and Burnett and now, with writer-director Joe Carnahan at the helm, Bad Boys 3 is officially a-go for 2018.
Bearing the title of Bad Boys For Life, Sony’s long-rumored action threequel is primed to welcome back Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as the fast-talking, sharpshooting narcotics officers. Story details are being kept largely under wraps for now, but during a recent interview with Collider, Carnahan shed some light on his creative approach, and why he has no intention of ignoring the time jump between Bad Boys 2 (2003) and its 2018 sequel.
Per Collider:
“We’re certainly not ignoring that, and that is a part of it. What happens 15 years on and where’s your life at now and what did you foresee yourself, it’s really rich material in that way. That part I’m really excited about, it’s a lot of exploring where are they now.”
As with previous installments, fans are excited to see the return of Smith and Lawrence’s cracking, at times effortless chemistry. It’ll take place in Miami, too, and here Carnahan discusses what he wants to bring to the table.
“It’s a very grounded, as much as it can be, Miami narcotics/robbery/homicide cops [story], two lifelong friends, these things are all appealing to me. That and knowing and doing something that I thought would be interesting, that would be an interesting challenge. Because those other films are Michael Bay’s and if you’re gonna come in you really gotta take it, you really gotta own that franchise. I came at it from a screenwriter’s standpoint and wrote my own version of the story, which is always exciting and fun. That’s what it was, being able to, as a writer, put my own spin on that world, more than anything else.”
Last and certainly not least, the writer-director spoke a little about the potential big bad that’ll feature in Bad Boys for Life, and how Smith and Lawrence could well be locking horns with multiple antagonists.
“It wasn’t challenging [coming up with the antagonist]. It should’ve been. You’ve got all these years in the game and you’ve made all these enemies, you’ve accumulated all this, so in that respect it would be easy. But I don’t wanna say anything else because I don’t wanna ruin the delicacy of who our antagonist is, because I think it’s very cool. It’s not one person. It’s a multi-headed hydra, I’ll say that. It works beautifully.”
Championed as the “strongest of the trilogy,” even at this early stage, Bad Boys for Life will cruise into theaters on January 12, 2018. Carnahan also has a hand in Sony’s long-gestating Uncharted movie with Shawn Levy, and is looking to engineer the anti-Indiana Jones with Nathan Drake’s cinematic debut.