Bad Boys 3 In Development

Remember the scene in Michael Bay’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen where Sam is drawing symbols all over the walls of his dorm room? Yeah, we’ve tried to forget about it too. What you might not have noticed is that Sam writes the number 3 on a poster for the other Michael Bay sequel, Bad Boys II. Now we’ve learned that the studio is moving forward with development on a third film, but will the original crew return for one more adventure?

THR reports that Columbia Pictures has hired Peter Craig to write a screenplay for Bad Boys 3. But the project is only in the early stages and none of the participants have yet agreed to return.

The hope is to get both Martin Lawrence and Will Smith to return, alongside director Michael Bay and producer Jerry Bruckheimer. Bruckheimer said in an interview that “When we had about two weeks of shooting left to go on Bad Boys II, Will and Martin were having such a good time, they phoned (Columbia studio boss) Amy Pascal and said, ‘We want to sign up for another one.’ So hopefully we’ll get them all back together again.”

At the 2008 MTV Movie Awards, Will Smith told Hollyscoop that he had an idea for Bad Boys 3, but added that “Michael (Bay) is too expensive now. He’s way too expensive.” And that is the big hurdle — getting the cash to bring back Will Smith, who has since exploded into a megastar, Bruckheimer, who never comes cheap, and Bay, who is now use to collecting percentages of toy merchandise Lucas-style.

All of the usual suspects have expressed an interest in coming back for a third movie, but only if they can get the story right. That’s where Craig comes in. For those of you who don’t recognize his name, you probably shouldn’t, as he has no completed screenwriting credits on his Hollywood resume.

According to Wikipedia, he’s a published author known for his “darkly comic novels of imploding father-child relationships.” His novels include The Martini Shot, Hot Plastic, and Blood Father. As for Hollywood, he has been developing a few projects, mainly co-writing Ben Affleck’s The Town which begins shooting next month, and has been working on a live-action adaptation of the popular anime Cowboy Bebop for 20th Century Fox and Keanu Reeves. Oh, and he’s also the son of actress Sally Field.

Many of you know that I’m often a defender of Michael Bay. That said, I didn’t speak up after the release of Transformers:Revenge of the Fallen for obvious reasons. And before that, my least favorite films he’s made are the Bad Boys series. That’s not to say they’re bad, I just don’t like Martin Lawrence. The first Bad Boys film is interesting to watch just because you can tell Bay is on a leash, restrained by producers and budget, on his first feature film. His next two films, The Rock and Armageddon, are probably his most coherent, probably because it was a time when he still had structure.

Back to the Bad Boys films, I will say this — the car chase sequence in Bad Boys 2 is very under-appreciated, and is probably (wait for it.. hyperbolic statement coming up… in 3…2…1..) one of the best car chase action sequences of the last decade (seen below).

And hey, best case scenario, as GetStuck suggests, this and the Point Break sequel might lead to a Hot Fuzz 2… Just a thought.