Bad Boys 4 box office shows that Will Smith's redemption is complete

The box office of 2024 might just have an unlikely saviour. Two years after the infamous Oscars slap, Will Smith is back on the big screen with Bad Boys 4 — and audiences just can't get enough.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die scored a monster opening weekend of $56m (£44m) in the US and $104.6m (£82.3m) globally. These are big numbers, putting the fourth Bad Boys movie squarely among the biggest opening weekends of 2024 so far.

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are back as the Miami cop buddies at the centre of a franchise that began under the stewardship of Michael Bay way back in 1995. Directing duo Adil & Bilall have helmed the last two movies, sending the series soaring to ever higher box office figures.

So let's dig a little deeper into those impressive numbers.

How does the Bad Boys 4 box office compare to the previous movie?

The third movie in the franchise, Bad Boys for Life, ended 2020 as the highest-grossing American film of the year. Its series-best global total of $427m (£336m) put it comfortably ahead of movies like Christopher Nolan's sci-fi Tenet and video game adaptation Sonic the Hedgehog.

Obviously, there are some caveats to this achievement. Bad Boys for Life hit cinemas in January and so was one of the few 2020 blockbusters not to see its chances seriously damaged by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which shuttered cinemas in most of the world from March.

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When blockbusters did begin to return in the summer and the second half of the year, they were affected by audience health concerns and changing public health information. It's likely that Bad Boys wouldn't have topped the American charts for the year without the closures.

However, there's no denying that this was an enormous box office step up for Bad Boys. The first film grossed $141m (£111m) in 1995, while the follow-up Bad Boys II — which later saw its cult fame elevated by a running gag in Hot Fuzz — earned $273m (£215m) in 2003.

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Bad Boys 3 made more than the first two films put together. Even more impressively, it still stands as the highest-grossing January release of all time.

So what of Bad Boys 4? Well, if we compare the opening weekends, it's the 2020 film that comes out on top. Bad Boys for Life earned $62.2m (£49m) across its three-day opening, boosted up to $73.4m (£58m) because of the long Martin Luther King Day weekend.

It's worth noting, though, that Bad Boys 4 has far more competition. In 2020, Bad Boys 3 found its main competition to be the dying embers of the final Star Wars movie and the Oscar-winning war film 1917. By contrast, Bad Boys 4 currently faces multiple huge family movies in IF and The Garfield Movie, as well as action competition in the face of Furiosa.

How does the Bad Boys 4 box office compare to other 2024 movies?

Bad Boys 4 can already boast the fifth biggest opening weekend of the year. It doesn't come close to Dune Part Two, of course, but it's an excellent result for an R-rated action movie. Bad Boys: Ride or Die comfortably bested Furiosa to net the best R-rated opening weekend of the year.

In terms of major R-rated movies, Bad Boys has a clear run now for several weeks until Deadpool & Wolverine arrives at the tail end of July. There are plenty of family movies arriving in the intervening period to hoover up some of the box office but, when it comes to adult audiences, Smith and Lawrence could continue to rake it in until the Marvel juggernaut rolls into town.

It's highly unlikely that Bad Boys: Ride or Die will match its predecessor in topping the US box office for 2024. However, it's certainly on track to match or even exceed the third film's overall total and it wouldn't be a surprise at all to see it in the year's top 10.

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Given the amount of doomy reporting about the summer box office being in need of a favour following high-profile under-performers like Furiosa and The Fall Guy, two charismatic movie stars with guns in their hands has proven to be just what the Hollywood doctor ordered.

What does Bad Boys 4 mean for Will Smith's career?

Bad Boys: Ride or Die is by far the biggest movie Will Smith has been involved in since the bizarre night in which he finally won his first Oscar, but also got himself banned from the ceremony for a decade.

Since then, he has only released one other movie — the Apple TV+ slavery drama Emancipation. That movie's tough subject matter and swift move to streaming in December 2022 made it unlikely to be a box office hit. Bad Boys: Ride or Die is his first release since then.

Shortly after the fateful slap, Netflix cancelled a sequel to the Smith-starring sci-fi Bright, though this was said to be unrelated to the incident. The streamer also abandoned development on action movie Fast & Loose, which had Smith attached to star.

But now the dust has settled and the cultural impact of the slap seems to have faded. If Bad Boys 4's opening is anything to go by, audiences have decided they're perfectly happy to have Smith back as a leading man.

Read more: I Am Legend 2 gets exciting update from Michael B Jordan (Digital Spy)

A fifth Bad Boys adventure now seems inevitable and he is also attached to an I Am Legend sequel, which would also star Michael B. Jordan. He's also on board for Sugar Bandits, in which he'll play one of a group of Iraq War veterans who decide to steal from drug dealers.

There's going to be a lot more Will Smith on our screens in the coming years. And a large part of that is due to the reliable brand behind Bad Boys — a franchise tough enough to withstand that slap.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die is out in cinemas now.