After Conquering the Box Office with Bad Boys: Ride or Die, Will Smith is Ready to Take the Music Industry by its Horns with a Giant Comeback
One of the most talented actors in the industry, Will Smith reprised his fan-favorite character of Det. Lt. Mike in 2024’s buddy cop action-comedy movie Bad Boys: Ride or Die. Directed by Adil and Bilall, the movie is a sequel to the 2020 release Bad Boys for Life and the fourth installment in the Bad Boys franchise. The original cast, including Martin Lawrence, Vanessa Hudges, Alexander Ludwig, Jacob Scipio, DJ Khaled, and more, returned to reprise their characters from previous installments.
The movie follows the detectives attempting to clear the name of their captain; Conrad Howard after he was falsely accused of conspiracy. Bad Boys: Ride or Die was released in early June after it premiered at the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai. The movie received a positive response and became the ninth-highest-grossing movie of 2024. Following the success of the movie, Will Smith has his eyes set on making a comeback in the music arena.
Will Smith to perform a ‘new song’ at the 2024 BET Awards
One of the most bankable stars, Will Smith initially gained recognition as a part of a hip-hop duo with DJ Jazzy Jeff, and the two of them released five studio albums from 1984 to 1994. Some of the songs that went on to be a success from their studio albums were Parents Just Don’t Understand, A Nightmare on My Street, Ring My Bell, and more.
Smith later went ahead to release solo albums titled Big Willie Style, Willennium, Born to Reign, and Lost and Found. The actor-singer has earned four Grammy Awards for his recording career. Now, according to the reports from EW, Smith is ready to come back to his music roots and is set to perform a new song at the 2024 BET Awards, which is scheduled to be held on June 30th, 2024.
The BET Awards will be hosted by Taraji P. Henson for the fourth time and is set to feature artists including Ice Spice, Latto, Victoria Monét, and more. Ahead of Smith’s much-awaited performance, the EVP Specials, Music Programming, and Music Strategy at BET, Connie Orlando, shared,
From his start as a rapper to The Fresh Prince to being a box office king as one of the Bad Boys, Will Smith is truly a global icon, and we are honored to welcome him back to the BET Awards stage. We look forward to Will adding to yet another defining night for the culture that is not to be missed.
The actor made a surprise cameo back in April when he joined Columbian singer J. Balvin at Coachella for a Men in Black performance. The duo performed the title track of the 1997 movie, and despite a cameo, Smith’s performance attracted attention and is known to be a memorable one. The actor also collaborated with Sean Paul on a song titled Light Em Up, which was featured in the soundtrack for his recent release Bad Boys: Ride or Die.
Bad Boys 4 directors talk about working with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence
Ahead of the release of the movie, during an interview with Variety, director duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah shared their thoughts on working with Smith and Martin Lawrence in addition to sharing their ideas for a probable fifth movie. The interviewer asked the duo if they had any ideas for Bad Boy 5, noting maybe a Reggie spinoff or Armando. To which they said,
We were wondering if there’s an Armando-Reggie spinoff. Reggie doesn’t say a lot; he’s stoic, and Armando’s more suavemente so that would be an interesting dynamic. In every country we were imagining, how would Mike and Marcus be in France, the UK, or Dubai…There’s a lot of interesting comedy that you could do with them. We’ve got to push it to the next level in terms of action.
Upon asking if the duo have reached out to Sony Pictures or the actors for the fifth installment, the directors mentioned that Tony Rothman from Sony Pictures told them, ‘Really happy. We’ve got to find something’, but no conversation regarding the fifth installment has been held yet. They also clarified that Rothman didn’t say ‘no’ to any of the suggestions they made for the probable fifth Bad Boys movie. The directors were also asked about what the actors wished to communicate through the movie. To which they replied,
Even though it’s an action-comedy popcorn movie, they want to say something. There’s a human aspect to Mike and Marcus’ friendship. They’re getting older, and you want to see the struggles they go through. That’s the heartbeat of the movie.
The director added that they would like to make the franchise international and would love to go around the world with the characters. Adil & Bilall lastly added that one can have a generic action movie where they have the bad boys on the run, but having a spiritual awakening is very personal for them as well as the actors which they managed to incorporate in the fourth installment.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die is playing in cinemas.
