Ali
In a captivating melee with Collider, “A-Team” helmer Joe Carnahan reveals that he walked away from the third “Bad Boys” flick because he butted heads with star Will Smith.
The veteran action filmmaker was originally set to direct Sony’s “Bad Boys For Life”, which reteams Smith and Martin Lawrence as the loose lipped cops, but quit the project – in September 2017 – because his original vision for it had been watered down.
“Here’s the thing. I love Will, he’s a great guy. It’s just, you get to a point where … listen, I always say this… ‘Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise, Will Smith, you find me a motherf****r in the modern era that’s walked away from movies with those guys and is still working in some capacity.”
“I just know myself, man. And I thought what we were doing at that point was the law of diminishing returns. ‘I wasn’t servicing the story that I was really excited about telling, that the studio had greenlit. And again, this isn’t to throw shade at Will — it’s your face on the poster, it’s your name on the poster, you need to do things the way you want them done.”
Carnahan believes some of his ideas survive.
“I think they’re doing a portion of it — I had a sequence where they’re on a Gunbus, which is a German motorcycle. They changed it, now it’s like a sidecar, not a good idea, whatever [laughs]. It’s one of the greatest.”
Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah ultimately took the reigns on the film, which releases January 17, 2020.
