Bad Boys: Ride Or Die Drives The Franchise Past A Billion Dollar Box Office Milestone

Asked by Empire magazine earlier this year whether their characters utter the classic "Lethal Weapon" line "I'm too old for this s**t" in "Bad Boys: Ride or Die," Will Smith and Martin Lawrence gave a passionate reply. "We refuse! We refuse!" said Smith. "We refuse to give it any power! We are as young as we feel!" concurred Lawrence. The box office certainly seems to agree, with "Ride or Die" riding in with a $56.5 million debut last weekend. Now, according to Smith himself, the fourth movie has officially carried the franchise as a whole past $1 billion at the worldwide box office. 

Meanwhile, "Ride or Die" will soon be celebrating its own personal milestone. The movie was knocked down from the box office No. 1 spot this weekend by the arrival of Pixar's "Inside Out 2," but it's expected to gross another $31.5 million that will take its domestic total past $100 million (per The Hollywood Reporter). An animated family movie and an R-rated action-comedy have very different target audiences, so "Inside Out 2" and "Bad Boys: Ride or Die" are serving up a neat bit of counter-programming that no doubt has theater owners breathing a sigh of relief.

This is Smith's first theatrical release since he notoriously slapped Chris Rock on stage at the 2022 Oscars. While his 10-year ban from the Academy Awards still has a lot of time left on the ticker, it doesn't look like the incident has diminished his ability to bring in the big bucks at the box office.

"Bad Boys," directed by Michael Bay and released in 1995, was Will Smith's first lead role in a film, and is largely responsible for making Hollywood sit up and pay attention to him as a movie star, rather than just a sitcom star. At the time, Martin Lawrence had slightly more experience on the big screen, through the "House Party" movies, Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing," and a theatrical release of his stand-up show "You So Crazy." Their on-screen chemistry combined with Bay's bombastic directing style shot "Bad Boys" all the way to $141.4 million at the worldwide box office, and in 2003 "Bad Boys II" came close to doubling that.

The real heavy lifter in this billion dollar achievement, however, is "Bad Boys for Life," which holds the distinction of being the highest-grossing movie at the domestic box office in 2020. Admittedly the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdowns played a big role there, but "Bad Boys for Life" nonetheless grossed $426.5 million worldwide — hence the fairly rapid turnaround on this latest sequel.

"Bad Boys: Ride or Die" probably won't climb quite that high (its opening weekend total was a few million behind "Bad Boys for Life") but it wouldn't be surprising to see it crack the $400 million mark globally. Nope, they're definitely not too old for this s**t.