The prospect of Bad Boys 3 has primarily existed as an opportunity for interviewers to talk with Martin Lawrence about anything other than Big Momma’s House, despite Lawrence’s avowal in 2010 that it was “really real” and “real realistic”—the realest of all possible realities. But now it seems it’s really really real and realistic: Sony has reportedly hired Safe House writer David Guggenheim to draft a sequel to the series in which Lawrence and Will Smith play sassy cop/sassier cop with the criminals of Miami, hoping to entice both stars—or, let’s be really real, Will Smith—into returning.
So far neither has officially signed on or even entered talks, and while the studio doesn’t seem overly concerned with also getting Michael Bay involved at this point, Deadline notes that any new Bad Boys would definitely be a sequel with that original cast—unlike Sony’s plans/threats to possibly reboot Men In Black and Ghostbusters with all-new, less expensive and more cooperative stars. In other words, no Will Smith, you cannot replace Lawrence with Jaden Smith. You must come and rejoin Martin Lawrence, so you can at last complete your life’s journey from Bad Boys to Bad Men.