You can probably use one hand to count the blockbuster movie franchises which have the same stars all the way through and continue to thrill audiences decades in. We thought that one such big-screen action series, Bad Boys, was going to be a given to continue, even though the 2025 movie schedule isn’t set to bring us another entry. However, it sounds like a hiccup in the real relationship between stars Martin Lawrence and Will Smith might be putting a crimp in possible plans for Bad Boys 5.
What’s Being Said About Bad Boys 5 And The BTS Relationship Of Martin Lawrence And Will Smith?
There’s no denying that the Bad Boys franchise is one of our most-beloved, and one of the reasons for that is the chemistry between Martin Lawrence and Will Smith as the titular leads, Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowrey. The men who portray the Miami police detectives have always seemed to have a close friendship in real life, with Lawrence being the one to convince Smith to sign on to the 1995 hit without a script.
A new report from Radar Online, though, is suggesting that we actually might not get the expected sequel to 2024’s mega-hit, Bad Boys: Ride or Die because the comedian and the rapper have very different lifestyles now. As an insider told the outlet:
Martin just turned 60 and at this age, he has a lot more fun performing his stand-up live and hanging out with his kids than he does making one of these giant, complicated movies. He’s not desperate for money or attention. Plus, as good as the chemistry is between Martin and Will in these films, it’s not like they’re best friends in real life.
While I don’t necessarily know if any of their fans did think that the duo were “best friends” in real life, it has certainly seemed that they at least enjoyed working together and got along well enough to like spending downtime together during the long hours on set. Plus, from the actors admitting they “blew” the title of Bad Boys 3, to the Oscar winner giving Lawrence a sweet tribute and having previously shouted out their decades of friendship, it certainly didn’t appear that either of them were denying that there was a bit of a bromance going on.
As we know, though, people change and so do their lives, and you can be friends with someone and eventually have a lifestyle that doesn’t really jive with theirs. Allegedly, this is where the Big Momma’s House talent and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air star are right now. The insider continued:
Will has a lot more in common with Tom Cruise than he does with Martin. They’re just very different people and live life at a radically different tempo. He’s enjoying life at his own pace and not in any rush to work with Will again, even though it’s basically the only film franchise Will has going right now.
Alright, this isn’t exactly a positive potential update, but it’s also not the death knell of the franchise, either. Even if this rumor is accurate, it would take some time to get Bad Boys 5 off the ground, seeing as how the actors hadn’t had any conversations about the story for the possible sequel by the time the 30th anniversary of the franchise rolled around this April.
There were four years between the third and fourth entries, so Lawrence could, theoretically, hang out without his on-screen partner for three-ish years then gear up to rejoin him. Hopefully, if there is trouble in Bad Boys paradise, that will be enough time for them to find “a reason” for the sequel and continue to give fans what we want.
