After the release of the original TRANSFORMERS, I was riding high on a Michael Bay resurgence. Though he was responsible for what I consider one of the worst action movies I’ve ever seen (ARMAGEDDON), I felt some of his later entries (THE ISLAND, TRANSFORMERS, that Verizon commercial) showed a relative degree of maturity. But then came TRANSFORMERS 2. Now I don’t want to hate on anyone who liked this movie but frankly it just destroyed any notion of a Bay renaissance. Clearly the director who made ARMAGEDDON is still alive and well and I have a hard time getting myself excited for the next film from a director who just screwed up TRANSFORMERS (I’m convinced that Spielberg’s heavy influence on the first film made it good despite Bay’s best efforts to screw it up).
So you’ll pardon me if I don’t jump up and down with excitement over the news that BAD BOYS 3 is in active development. Columbia Pictures has hired Peter Craig to write a script that they hope will reunite Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Bay and producer Jerry Bruckheimer to finish out the trilogy. But really, is it worthwhile? The last film grossed only $138 million and think of how much it’ll cost to get all four partners involved again. Let’s just hope this is all just happy talk and BAD BOYS 3 is just a bad idea.