Action junkie director Michael Bay is back to making spectacle films with the theatrical release of his heist thriller “Ambulance.” Bay started out working with Will Smith by launching the “Bad Boys” franchise, and the director recently revealed in an interview that he didn’t originally have backing from the studio.
While speaking with Entertainment Weekly, the filmmaker recalled that Sony Pictures didn’t believe in the original “Bad Boys” movie released in 1995 due to the buddy cop film featuring black leads, sitcom stars Smith and Martin Lawrence. The studio was still holding on to the longstanding Hollywood myth of films with black casts not being appealing to overseas audiences — a notion that has been since debunked, over and over again.
“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 ‘True Lies,’ and I’m like, Oh, my God, this guy has so much money. I have only $9 million. And they shut me down, literally. They shut the power off. That’s how rude they were on this movie. Luckily, I had 500 days of film set experience doing videos, commercials, working with some of the most famous athletes in the world, and that’s where you really truly know how to deal with a–holes,” Bay said of his experience trying to get “Bad Boys” made.
The hit R-rated action-comedy would earn $141 million globally, spawning two sequels and even a spinoff television series, “L.A.’s Finest,” starring Gabrielle Union and Jessica Alba. Its third installment, “Bad Boys For Life,” became the biggest Hollywood blockbuster of 2020 as it made $426.6 million before the pandemic kneecapped the industry and many theaters shuttered in subsequent months.
This echoes similar statements made by “Independence Day” director Roland Emmerich about 20th Century Fox’s reasoning for having issues with Smith co-starring in their big sci-fi blockbuster.
“The studio said, ‘No, we don’t like Will Smith. He’s unproven. He doesn’t work in international [markets].’”
“Bad Boys”’ success at the box office not only paved the way for massive studio projects decades later like “Black Panther” but also helped Smith become one of the most popular action stars of the mid-to-late 1990s, following up with other international hits such as “Independence Day” and “Men In Black.”