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

Two years after the Oscars slap, Will Smith is back at the top of the box office charts thanks to the Bad Boys 4 opening weekend.

Will Smith is riding high at the box office once again with Bad Boys: Ride or Die. (Sony Pictures)

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?

Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are back together in Bad Boys: Ride or Die. (Sony Pictures)
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.

Read more: Bad Boys 4 Is a Hit, but Cinemas Need More to Salvage the Summer (Variety)

Bad Boys For Life was one of the last blockbusters to hit cinemas before the pandemic. (Sony Pictures)
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.

Read more: Will Smith And Martin Lawrence Recalled Filming Bad Boys 2’s Famous ‘Reggie’ Scene, And Now I Understand Why It’s So Perfect (CinemaBlend)

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.

Martin Lawrence and Will Smith first fronted Bad Boys way back in 1995. (Columbia Pictures/Alamy)
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: Ride or Die could save the summer box office. (Sony Pictures)
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.