Michael Bay dismisses possibility of directing Bad Boys 3

It looks as though Michael Bay has no interest in returning to the series that launched him as Hollywood’s most notorious action director.

The 52-year old American filmmaker, whose fifth and reportedly final ‘Transformers’ movie hits cinemas soon, made his feature debut on the 1995 Don Simpson/Jerry Bruckheimer production ‘Bad Boys,’ starring Martin Lawrence and Will Smith.

Bay reunited with Lawrence and Smith on the outrageously over-the-top 2003 sequel ‘Bad Boys II,’ but has seemingly had little involvement with the long-in development third film in the series, tentatively entitled ‘Bad Boys For Life,’ which does not have a director attached at present.

However, when asked whether he might be interested in returning to the director’s chair for the third adventure of Miami cops Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowrey, Bay didn’t seem particularly keen.

The director laughed to Fandango, “Pretty soon they’re going to be old boys, okay. Pretty soon they’re going to be retired cops instead of active-duty cops.

“It’s taken a long time to get that thing going, and I’m not involved in getting it going. They should get it going soon, though. You could definitely get Martin and Will to be funny again – those were fun movies to do.”

In many respects, the ‘Bad Boys’ movies are quintessential Michael Bay: sunny locations, fancy cars, scantily-clad women, large scale scenes of carnage and destruction. As such, it’s a little surprising he wouldn’t want to revisit that.

And yet, believe it or not, it seems that even Michael Bay gets a little tired of non-stop mega-budget high-octane action after a while (hence his comparatively smaller films ‘Pain & Gain’ and ’13 Hours’); and, as he explains, this is one of the key reasons he’s bowing out of the ‘Transformers’ series.

“These movies that I’ve done, they are massive movies. They take a lot out of you. I’ve done it enough, and I’ve had a great time doing it. I’m going out with a bang on this one, and I feel like you gotta go out while you’re ahead, you know. I think I’ve had a good run, and I’ve got a lot of other movies I want to do.”

“I just read a very bloody hit man movie that was a page turner. That seems like a fun one to do. I love doing ’13 Hours,’ I love doing ‘Pain & Gain’ – I think it’ll be something more serious and more adult, I guess.”

As for ‘Bad Boys For Life’ – Joe Carnahan has written the screenplay and was initially attached to direct, but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts (he’s attached to 20th Century Fox’s Marvel movie ‘X-Force,’ and a remake of ‘The Raid’). The currently director-free sequel is scheduled to hit screens in November 2018.

In the meantime, Michael Bay’s latest movie ‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ opens on 22 June.

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