Will Smith and Martin Lawrence dominated the global box office with an impressive opening weekend for Bad Boys: Ride or Die. Here are the numbers.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die outperformed expectations at the box office during its first weekend. The fourth instalment of the film, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, grossed $56 million (over Rs 450 crore) domestically and $104.6 million (over Rs 870 crore) worldwide. The action-comedy series provided the summer box office a much-needed boost. In contrast, Bad Boys For Life earned $426 million (around Rs 3500 crore) worldwide in January 2020 after earning $62 million (around Rs 500 crore) nationwide.
Bad Boys: Ride or Dide is “arguably” the first summer film to gross more than anticipated during its first weekend of release, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The movie has a 64% critics score and a 97% audience score as of now on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie’s distributor, Sony Pictures Releasing, had initially projected a $30 million opening, but this has been far beyond their expectations, per Screen Rant.
Not only has the new film over-doubled its initial release total, but it also had the second-highest 3-day debut of the series thus far, trailing only Bad Boys for Life. IF, The Fall Guy, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, The Garfield Movie, and other big tentpoles were released throughout the month, but only Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, with its $342.2 million (almost Rs 2800 crore) revenue, proved to be a summer-sized smash.
The other films have done a range of poorly to mediocrely well, with The Fall Guy and Furiosa both failing to break even on their budgets. Bad Boys: Ride or Die is Smith’s first big-budget film role since he slapped and angrily scolded Oscar presenter Chris Rock at the 2022 Academy Awards.
Since then, Smith has become more marginalised both in Hollywood and among moviegoers. His only film role was in the historical slave drama Emancipation on AppleTV+ in 2023.
The plot of Bad Boys: Ride or Die is closely related to that of Bad Boys For Life, in which detectives Mike Lowery (Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) are distressed by the death of Captain Conrad Howard (Joe Pantoliano), their longtime commanding officer.
They aim not just to restore their late captain’s honour, but also to discover who set him up and who may be targeting them next.
Ride or Die was once again directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced the three previous films, co-produced the movie alongside Smith.
