Michael Bay Return To $1.2 Billion Bad Boys Franchise Can Be Ruled Out

Michael Bay is one of the most famous action directors of all time, and he is no stranger to franchises. He spent nearly a decade working on the popular Transformers movie franchise, and there are even discussions of Bay coming back to the Hasbro film series for another installment now.

If Bay is willing to come back to Transformers after the franchise has had success and failure without him, it’s interesting to consider what other properties he could circle back around to in the future. While he’s done original movies like Ambulance and 6 Underground that could be turned into franchises, a return to Bad Boys would be most exciting.

Bay made his feature directorial debut with 1995’s Bad Boys, the buddy cop action movie starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. The movie was a big success, making $141.4 million and launching the film career of Smith and Bay. Despite the sprawling career that has come since then, the franchise is still responsible for some of Bay’s best movies.

Yet, the director has not been behind the camera of this series since 2003’s Bad Boys II. There have been more Bad Boys movies in the last five years, but he’s only served in a producer role while Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah directed. The franchise has been riding high without him, but a return ever happening now is looking unlikely.

Michael Bay Definitely Won’t Come Back To Bad Boys After Will Smith Falling Out

Hope for Bay’s return to Bad Boys grew recently when it was revealed that he was set to make a new movie with Will Smith. Netflix film Fast and Loose would have starred Smith as a man who wakes up in Tijuana with no memories, where he discovers that he has been living a double life as a CIA agent and a crime lord.

This was going to be the duo’s first movie together since Bad Boys II. The reunion between Bay and Smith was the main point of anticipation in the new film. If everything went well on Fast and Loose, it was conceivable that it could be a new franchise for them or lay the groundwork for them to make another Bad Boys movie together.

Unfortunately, Bay will no longer be directing the movie. Bay has exited Fast and Loose due to reported creative differences with Smith. The director wanted to focus more on the film’s action elements, while Smith wanted to lean further into the comedic tone of the script.

After Bay’s smaller involvement in the last two Bad Boys movies, many fans hoped that he would return to direct the fifth film. However, Bay and Smith’s Fast and Loose conflicts make this seem less likely. If they can’t agree on the tone of this film, it would be hard for them to agree on a new Bad Boys, especially after the franchise has evolved in the two movies without Bay.

It is possible that Bay’s decision to leave Fast and Loose was completely amicable, with the duo simply deciding that he wasn’t right for the film. If this is the case, it is entirely possible that they could reunite on Bad Boys 5.

If their disagreements were more intense, however, it’d be harder to convince them to reunite. It’s difficult to say for sure until more details about Fast and Loose’s development are revealed, but it seems unlikely that Michael Bay will direct another Bad Boys movie starring Will Smith now.