With over $200 million domestically at the box office the Will Smith-Martin Lawrence film Bad Boys For Life is now the second-biggest January release between American Sniper ($350m) and The Revenant ($183 million after expanding in early 2016). It’s also the highest-grossing film in the Bad Boys franchise.1995’s Bad Boys took in $65m domestically and 2003’s Bad Boys II grossed $138m domestically.
Not only that, but with a total worldwide gross of $415m so far, this is the 2nd highest-grossing BLACK film behind Marvel’s Black Panther ($1.3B).
Produced with a $90m budget, the film opened on Jan. 17 and took over the #1 spot at the box office with a $48 million gross over the four-day MLK weekend. It would go to take first place for two more weekends.
After many false starts, it seems that time was on the producers’ side. Audiences enjoyed seeing their favorite duo of Mike Lowery (Smith) and Marcus Burnett back on the screen (Lawrence).
The new installment centers on the Miami PD and its elite AMMO team’s attempt to take down Armando Armas, head of a drug cartel. Armando is a cold-blooded killer with a vicious, taunting nature. He is committed to the work of the cartel and is dispatched by his mother to kill Mike Lowery.
Along with Smith and Lawrence, other returnees include Joe Pantoliano as Captain Howard along with Theresa Randle as Theresa, Marcus’ wife and Bianca Bethune as their daughter Megan. New cast members included Paola Nuñez, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexander Ludwig, Charles Melton, Jacob Scipio and DJ Khaled.
Directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah directed the latest entry from a script by Peter Craig (Bad Boys 2), Joe Carnahan (The A-Team) and Chris Bremmer.
