Director Joe Carnahan Says Will Smith Is the Reason He Didn’t Work on ‘Bad Boys III’

Since the possibility was first whispered, fans have been highly anticipating the third installment of the popular Bad Boys franchise. Now, with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence wrapping up the production, Bad Boys III is no longer a Hollywood fantasy.

However, before this dream became a reality, acclaimed director Joe Carnahan was rumored to have been tapped to write and direct the film. Carnahan eventually parted ways with the project and in his latest interview, he discloses why. 

In a podcast interview published by The Collider on Friday, Carnahan explains that a creative clash between himself and co-star Will Smith led to his departure. 

“Listen, I love Will [Smith],” Carnahan began. “I just know myself, man. I felt that what we were doing at that point was the law of diminishing returns. I was servicing the story that I was real excited about telling, that the studio had greenlit.”

He then went on to praise Smith taking creative control of his image and the franchise he helped built. Later, The Blacklist writer does reveal that the original ending to Bad Boys III is one of the greatest things he’s created. “The end of my original Bad Boy‘s script is one of the best endings I’ve ever written for any movie,” Carnahan explained.

In addition to alluding to his planned ending, Carnahan also went on to share some of the funnier inside gags he wrote into his version of the Bad Boys III script. One of these was a shot Carnahan wanted to take at Oscar-winning film The Danish Girl.

“I hated The Danish Girl so much,” Carnahan joked. “I said, ‘Could you make a poster for The Danish Girl and blow it apart?’ And they said, ‘Yeah, we can do that.’ I fucking hated that movie with the white-hot heat of a thousand suns. I think the people who worked on [The Danish Girl] are all really talented, I just hated that movie, me personally. I’m sure they hate my movies.”