How ‘Hulk’ and ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ Affected Michael Bay’s ‘Bad Boys 2’
Will Smith and Martin Lawrence worked together to create one of cinema’s biggest franchises in the Bad Boys series. But in the second film, Michael Bay was facing some stiff competition from other action movies. This had a small but effective impact on how Bad Boys 2 turned out.
How competition led to an even bigger ‘Bad Boys 2’
Bay hoped to top the original Bad Boys with its sequel, and he was given more resources to do it. The original Bad Boys only gave Bay a budget of $19 million to use for the movie. But playing it safe with the budget led to a much bigger reward, as Bad Boys ended up grossing $141 million worldwide.
All the main players would return for the sequel, including Smith. according to Bay’s interview with BBC, the success of the original Bad Boys resulted in massive pressure when developing the sequel. Especially when Bay’s ideas for the movie might’ve been too grand for its budget.
“Martin and Will seemed like the same guys. It felt pretty much the same, more pressure, and more money at stake. I thought it was going to be a small comedy, but it turned out to be much larger and more complicated than expected. I write my own action scenes and they just kept… expanding,” Bay said.
“We didn’t have a lot of money to make this movie. We had less than Gone in 60 Seconds had. It was tough. I had to shoot really fast. But some things went our way: that house we blew up belonged to the Coca-Cola heirs. They didn’t like it and they were going to tear it down anyway, so we got to blow that up for free. But that’s action movies for you. I’m going in different directions now,” the filmmaker added.
However, one of Bay’s biggest motivations for growing the film’s action scenes was its competition. There were two films Bay had in mind in particular that threatened to overshadow Bad Boys 2.
“Yeah, it’s my over-the-top action, more-violent-than-it-should-be movie. But we were up against and The Matrix Reloaded. What would you do? You know these movies are coming out. Things just have to get bigger,” Bay said.
Why Michael Bay didn’t come back for ‘Bad Boys for Life’
It took some time, but eventually the Bad Boys movies would get two more films to carry on its legacy. Its two sequels, Bad Boys for Life and Ride or Die, enjoyed even more success. They each drew $400 million worldwide at the box office, a significant financial step up from its predecessors. The sequels also experienced more positive critic reviews than the others, proving that the series has only gotten better with time.
However, Bay didn’t return to direct either film. Instead, the franchise was inherited by newer filmmakers Adil & Bilall. Bay handing his franchise off to other filmmakers shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, though. The director once confided long ago that he had nothing to do with developing any more potential Bad Boys stories.
“Pretty soon they’re going to be old boys, okay. Pretty soon they’re going to be retired cops instead of active-duty cops,” Bay once told Fandango. “It’s taken a long time to get that thing going, and I’m not involved in getting it going. They should get it going soon, though. You could definitely get Martin and Will to be funny again – those were fun movies to do.”
Bay said this at a time when he was planning to take on new creative challenges in his career. This might’ve played a part in him leaving Bad Boys behind.
“These movies that I’ve done, they are massive movies,” Bay said of his Transformers films. “They take a lot out of you. I’ve done it enough, and I’ve had a great time doing it. I’m going out with a bang on this one, and I feel like you gotta go out while you’re ahead, you know. I think I’ve had a good run, and I’ve got a lot of other movies I want to do.”
But Smith also once quipped that the filmmaker would’ve been too costly to hire for another Bad Boys.
“Michael is too expensive now, he’s way too expensive,” Smith once said according to Digital Spy.
