Bad Boys 4 Directors Adil & Bilall on Box Office, Will Smith Slap Joke

Following the franchise-topping $426 million success of “Bad Boys for Life” was going to be a tough task for any director. Fortunately, “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” has two — the Belgian directing duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, collectively billed as Adil & Bilall.

In this fourth installment, Adil & Bilall send Miami PD detectives Mike Lowery (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) on the run, framed for crimes they didn’t commit. And the production had plenty of hurdles to get over before it, too, could clear a path to success. First, there was Smith’s 2022 Oscars slap; then production was suspended by Hollywood’s historic dual strikes.

The film hit theaters on June 7 and became the first movie to jolt Hollywood’s summer box office, grossing $106 million at the global box office from a $100 million production budget (not accounting for the price of the splashy world tour to promote the film). To date, the movie has made $227 million worldwide, bringing the “Bad Boys” franchise’s box office above $1 billion globally.

They haven’t gotten official word from Sony chief Tom Rothman or stars Smith and Lawrence that they’re a “go” for a fifth film in the franchise, but the directing duo certainly have ideas.

“[‘Bad Boys’ producer] Jerry Bruckheimer has a philosophy: you’ve got to make something that people want to see, and nowadays that’s even more important than before,” El Arbi adds. “We…