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Bay left after two screenwriters took a pass at the movie (there was no bad blood, he makes a cameo in "Bad Boys for Life"), leading to Joe Carnahan ("Narc," "The Grey") taking the writer-director reins in the spring of 2015. It also began a revolving door of screenwriters and directors to the project. What they didn't know was Bruckheimer had been trying to make the movie for close to a decade.įive years after 2003's "Bad Boys II" took in an impressive $273.3 million at the worldwide box office, Bruckheimer, Bay, and Smith began discussing a third movie. "For us it was just an honor that he would watch the movie," El Arbi said.īut when they had a sit down with Bruckheimer in 2016, they didn't waste their chance: They told the producer they wanted to make the third "Bad Boys." That led to the filmmakers getting managers and agents, which got their work in front of the mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer. 17 years after "Bad Boys II" was released - and after a slew of screenwriters and directors tried and failed to make a third movie - El Arbi and Fallah have done it with "Bad Boys for Life" (in theaters Friday).Įl Arbi and Fallah first got on the industry's radar in 2015 with their second feature film, "Black." The modern-day spin on "Romeo and Juliet," set around gang life in Brussels, struck a cord with audiences at the Toronto International Film Festival that year, as the movie was given its Discovery Award. What was likely only a fun pipe dream has turned out to be how most audiences will be introduced to the filmmaking duo. "Me and Bilall would always say, we are going to go to Hollywood and if they don't want to make 'Bad Boys' movies we are," El Arbi told Business Insider over the phone this week. In fact, when the two Moroccan-born filmmakers met at film school in the early 2000s and began collaborating, they would joke about how their future would turn out. This post was originally published on January 16 and has been updated with "Bad Boys for Life's" box-office totals.īelgian filmmakers Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah are like many of us: They grew up watching Will Smith and Martin Lawrence on the big screen in Michael Bay's "Bad Boys" movies.
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The filmmakers are also developing "Beverly Hills Cop 4.".Their Brussels-set second movie, "Black," grabbed the attention of mega-producer Jerry Bruckheimer, which launched them into the running to get the third "Bad Boys" sequel.
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Adil El Arbi, who directed "Bad Boys for Life" with Bilall Fallah, spoke to Business Insider about making the duo's first mainstream movie.