Will Smith & Martin Lawrence To Officially Reunite For 'Bad Boys 4'

The next installment in the Bad Boys film franchise is in pre-production. Lead actors Will Smith and Martin Lawrence announced the news on social media.

“IT’S ABOUT THAT TIME!” wrote Will Smith on Instagram as a caption for his announcement video. Martin Lawrence also posted, “IT’S ABOUT THAT TIME!”

Bad Boys 4 will arrive after the release of Bad Boys for Life in 2020. The Adil & Bilall-directed motion picture became the fourth highest-grossing film of that year.

Sony Pictures Entertainment’s buddy cop movie franchise also includes 1995’s Bad Boys and 2003’s Bad Boys II. In all, the three films made over $841 million at the global box office.

“For us to come together and prove that we can deliver, and we can pull people into the box office — that two Black stars, two sitcom stars, could make money at the box office [was huge],” said Martin Lawrence about the original Bad Boys.

There was some concern that Will Smith’s infamous “Oscar Slap” at the 94th Academy Awards could derail the fourth chapter of the series. However, the incident has not stopped plans from moving forward.

According to reports, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah will be back to direct Smith and Lawrence in Bad Boys 4. Chris Bremner wrote the script. All three creators worked on the previous film.