Bad Boys: Ride or Die directors comment on 'perfect missed opportunity' in film's name

When it comes to the Bad Boys franchise, bringing it back after almost 20 years for a third film meant one thing: you need a great name.

While the second film was just called Bad Boys II, the third film went with the iconic Bad Boys for Life.

The film had new directors in Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, but the same old stars in Will Smith and Martin Lawrence; the film was a massive hit – making over $400 million at the box office.

This success came with a cost though.

Bad Boys Ride or Die was quickly green lit, and while it has released to positive reviews – everyone had the same realisation.

“Oh god we could’ve called it Bad Boys 4 Life”.

One fan posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) earlier this week to say:

“How annoying is it that they called the thirdbad boys movie Bad Boys for Life and completely sh*t on the hardest title ever for the fourth one cuz Bad Boys 4 Life is just too f*cking hard.”

They were joined by another who said: “Perfectly missed opportunity to name it Bad Boys 4 Life I’m disappointed with everyone involved.”

If you’ve been asking yourself that same question – don’t worry, so have the directors of the last two Bad Boys films.

Adil El Arbi and Billal Fallah spoke exclusively to LADBible, where we asked them about the missed opportunity to call the new film Bad Boys 4 Life.

They laughed at the question, with Adil El Arbi saying: “Yeah, I mean, I wish we knew that we were going to do a fourth film so we would have done Ride or Die as the previous one and this would be For Life.

“So, maybe we'll do it like Star Wars, you know, he also changed his title to "A New Hope".

Bilall Fallah added: “So we'll just switcharoo that. Yeah, in 10 years, we'll do that.”

Honestly, if they did, no one would be complaining.

Regardless of the decision, Bad Boys Ride or Die has received across the board praise, with a decent score of 69 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

When asked about the pair returning for the fourth film and working with Lawrence and Smith, Adil El Arbi said: “Our personal relationship just became more intense and we knew each other better.

“When we came back to this movie it was like the family came back together.

“For the previous movie we came from small Belgian films and then, all of a sudden, we make this big Hollywood picture with big star.

“So, for us as directors, it was a totally different experience. Last time we were scared but this time we were much more experienced.

“We had so much fun behind the camera that you really see it in front of the camera.”

The fun very clearly made it to the other side of the camera with fans loving the film so far.

Bad Boys Ride or Die releases on 5 June.