Will Smith and Martin Lawrence showed up to the Bad Boys: Ride or Die premiere in Hollywood on Thursday ready to put on a show.
Arriving on top of a double-decker bus, Smith quickly took on the role of hype man, yelling into a microphone, “When I say, ‘bad,’ you say ‘boys’” to the crowd gathered on Hollywood Boulevard. He and Lawrence, reuniting for their fourth Bad Boys film, soaked up the fan love for the franchise and told The Hollywood Reporter that after nearly 30 years of playing these characters, they’re not quite ready to hang it up.
Although many long-running franchises have been rebooted with younger casts or passed the baton on to the next generation, Smith insisted, “We might have one more in us before we hand it off but we’ve got a lot of young seeds in there.” Added Lawrence, “The back ain’t went out quite yet, so before we do that — we ain’t going to pass it off just yet.”
The latest film follows the two iconic Miami police officers as their former captain is linked to drug cartels and they go on a dangerous mission to clear his name. It follows 2020’s Bad Boys for Life, after Bad Boys began in 1995 followed by Bad Boys II in 2003.
“We love working with each other,” Lawrence said of their relationship, as Smith recalled, “When we hit the set on this movie, literally on the first day we’re going, rushing around, and Martin just said, ‘Hey man, slow down a little bit.’ He said, ‘We’re going to enjoy this one,’ you know, and he sort of set that tone day one that we were going to come together and we were going to make sure we didn’t miss the beauty of this opportunity we had to work together.”
Smith added of their 30-year friendship, “These kinds of relationships must be nurtured. It is a gift from the heavens to be able to have a ride or die like this, on camera and off.”
Bad Boys: Ride or Die — directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah and co-starring Eric Dane, Jacob Scipio, Vanessa Hudgens, Tiffany Haddish and Joe Pantoliano — hits theaters June 7.
Anaja Smith contributed to this report.
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