Joe Carnahan Left ‘Bad Boys III’ Because He Clashed With Will Smith
By Chris Evangelista/April 22, 2019 9:30 am EST
But what happened with Carnahan? According to the filmmaker, his Bad Boys III script was solid, but it wasn’t what star Will Smith wanted. “I love Will, he’s a great guy,” Carnahan recently told Collider. “I just know myself. And I thought what we were doing at that point was the law of diminishing returns. I wasn’t servicing the story that I was really excited about telling, that the studio had greenlit. And again, this isn’t to throw shade at Will — it’s your face on the poster, it’s your name on the poster, you need to do things the way you want them done.”
Carnahan also added that the ending to his script was “one of the best endings I’ve ever written in any movie.”
So does anything of Carnahan’s remain in the upcoming third film, officially titled Bad Boys For Life? Yes, it does. The film’s basic plot – which involves Smith and Lawrence’s aging duo having to work with a hotshot team of young cops – was from Carnahan’s script:
It sounds as if Carnahan’s basic framework is still there, with additional details added by new screenwriter Chris Bremner. I like a lot of Carnahan’s work, and wish he was still directing the film. But he’s also someone who isn’t afraid to stick to his guns, and that’s commendable. In addition to Bad Boys III and Mission: Impossible III, he also walked away from the Death Wish remake for similar reasons.
“There’s an ammo team, the kind of young go-getters like the 21 Jump Street kids, and there’s still the idea of these guys being kind of 50 and maybe over-the-hill…Like that kind of stuff. There’s still all that.”
Bad Boys For Life opens January 17, 2020.
