In the days following Will Smith’s pimp slap of Chris Rock at the Oscars, the actor saw a bunch of his high-profile projects either delayed or outright canceled. One on that list was Bad Boys 4, a sequel to the $400M hit Bad Boys for Life from 2020. Well, Sony chief Tom Rothman is pumping the breaks on that news and says the sequel is definitely still in the works…
Rothman told Deadline, “No. That was inaccurate. That movie’s been in development and still is. There weren’t any brakes to pump because the car wasn’t moving.”
Interestingly, Rothman also felt like chiming in about the slap and, in particular, Smith’s apology, calling it “genuine.” Yeah, whatever man.
Anyway, this news isn’t at all surprising. Bad Boys 4 moved beyond Michael Bay with red-hot filmmakers Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. It became the biggest hit of 2020 during the pandemic height, and a sequel was quickly put in development with screenwriter Chris Bremner. I’ll be curious to see, when the movie does get going, how much they put Will Smith in front of it.
