‘Bad Boys 3’ Gets a New Title; Release Date Pushed to 2018!!

Bad Boys 3 is forging ahead, but Sony Pictures is making a couple of nips and tucks as the project inches closer towards production. The studio announced an ambitious slate of release dates last summer, with Bad Boys 3 put on the schedule for release in February 2017. It was subsequently moved to June 2nd, where it would be going head to head with Wonder Woman, but now that date is off the table as well. While the studio signed The Grey, The A-Team, and Smokin’ Aces filmmaker Joe Carnahan to write and direct, filming on Bad Boys 3 has yet to begin and, as such, one imagines that June 2017 release date was just too tight a squeeze.

As a result, the sequel—which will see Will Smith and Martin Lawrence reprising their roles—has now been pushed to January 12, 2018 and has been given a new title: Bad Boys for Life. That January date is…odd to say the least, and I’d be surprised if that sticks. Films like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the Tom Cruise-fronted American Made have been initially dated for seemingly strange January release dates only to be pushed to more appropriate summer or fall dates, and one imagines Sony will probably move Bad Boys for Life into a flashier corridor for a more appropriate launch.

That said, if the sequel does stick to this January release date, it’ll be going head-to-head with Fox’s Maze Runner: The Death Cure. Curiously, when Sony first announced a release date for Bad Boys 3 they also set Bad Boys 4 for release on July 3, 2019 (now that’s a worthy release date), but we haven’t heard any more about a further sequel just yet.

Carnahan was recently enlisted by Sony to pen a new script for the long-developing Uncharted movie while Will Smith is busy with promotional duties on Suicide Squad, shooting his next film Bright with David Ayer, and then likely going on the promotional/Oscar circuit for his December drama Collateral Beauty. Given his busy schedule, one imagines Bad Boys for Life won’t start filming until sometime next spring or summer, which certainly explains this release date shift. Now we wait to see if Sony moves the film into the Summer 2018 corridor, which is already mighty crowded with Jurassic World 2, Toy Story 4, Ant-Man and the Wasp and a Transformers spinoff all set for release in June and July.