Sony Had No Faith In Bad Boys, Claims Michael Bay
According to Michael Bay, Sony Pictures had no faith in the success of Bad Boys when the film was in production. Released in 1995, Bad Boys starred Will Smith and Martin Lawrence as two Miami narcotic detectives hunting down a missing shipment of mafia heroin. Directed by Bay and produced by the duo of Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, the film was a massive success, and managed to pull in $141 million against a $19 million budget.
Much of the film's success was down to the chemistry between the two leads, whose quick-witted back-and-forth brought a much needed comedic edge to many of the scenes. Bay has described how he was disappointed by the script and often asked Smith and Lawrence to improvise, allowing the cameras to roll whilst the two of them spontaneously produced new jokes. This same energy was then carried over to the sequel, Bad Boys 2, which came out in 2003 and grossed almost twice that of the original. The trilogy was concluded in2020 with Bad Boys for Life, which received the best critical response of all three films and also the highest box 0ffice gross.
Related: Why Will Smith Has Never Played A True Villain
However, it seems that had Bay paid attention Sony Pictures back in the 90's, the winning Bad Boys formula might never had made it to the screen. In an interview with EW, the director describes how Sony, who financed the film, didn't have faith in Bad Boys' success because it had two Black leads. According to Bay, Sony thought that films with two Black leads don't sell well overseas and therefore were hesitant to give the production a great deal of resources.
“Sony didn’t believe in the movie, because two Black actors don’t sell overseas. They had no faith in it. I was watching James Cameron’s
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