4 Apr – Following the backlash against Will Smith for his behaviour at the 94th Academy Awards and his preemptive resignation from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), it was revealed that the situation may have impacted the actor's upcoming new project, "Bad Boys 4". The Hollywood Reporter recently stated that there have been some talks that the production of the fourth film had been in active development, with Smith already receiving 40 pages of the script prior to the Oscars incident. However, following the controversy, there is now a pause in work as Sony Pictures is awaiting how things will play out, allegedly.
The first instalment of the "Bad Boys" franchise was released in 1995, followed by its sequel that came out eight years later in 2003. The third instalment, "Bad Boys For Life" was released in January 2020. "I just didn't want to wreck the franchise," Smith shared in a previous interview regarding the long gap between the instalments. "I felt like I had other sequels in my career [where I felt] like I didn't land it. But with this one I just wanted to protect this franchise. I wanted to make sure that the story was right, that it had something to say, that it was funny, and that it deserved to be made again. Not just, 'People like sequels, so let's just do a sequel.'"