Will Smith Says Bad Boys 3 Is Very, Very, Very Close

Bad boys, bad boys. What are you going to do when you finally hit theaters? Earlier this year, fans of the thrilling franchise were sent into a tizzy when a release date and title were set for the third Bad Boys feature. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence will return to reprise their iconic roles for the cop flick, and now, fans have learned the film will begin filming sooner rather than later.

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Will Smith stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live recently and took time to talk about the much-anticipated film. It was there that the host asked Smith if Lawrence was being honest when he previously said Bad Boys 3 would being production in March 2017. Smith would not give a straight answer on when the movie would kick-off shooting, but he did say this:"It is very, very, very close. It's very close."

The actor then continued, saying, "Bad Boys - the last one was 2004 or something like that. It was what? [19]94 was the first one or something." He then joked with Kimmel that Lawrence and he can only gather the resources to do one Bad Boys film a decade.

So far, it looks like Lawrence was dead-on about the anticipated production schedule for the upcoming movie. There may be some wiggle room with the plan according to Smith, but fans are just happy to hear the project is moving along as planned.

Earlier this year, fans were first given hope that Bad Boys 3 would get into gear after Lawrence spoke to Kimmel in July. "We're looking towards maybe March," Lawrence admitted. "So hopefully it may happen if we can get everybody together at the same time."

When asked what the hold-up was, Lawrence replied, "I don't think there's no holdout. It's just a matter of getting the script right and everything and just doing it at the right time."

Currently, it looks like the script for Bad Boys 3 is in its last stages of revision. Not long ago, director Joe Carnahan spoke to Collider about the comeback and said the sequel will account for all the years missing between the second and third movie.

"We're certainly not ignoring that, and that is a part of it," he said. "What happens 15 years on and where's your life at now and what did you foresee yourself, it's really rich material in that way. That part I'm really excited about, it's a lot of exploring where are they now."

When it comes to ratings, the director felt confident that Bad Boys 3 would get a R-rating. "I think it's gonna be R. I don't think we're trying to make a PG-13 version of Bad Boys," Carnahan said.

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"We haven't discussed the rating, but both the other films were R-rated; Deadpool made $800 million globally and was an R-rated film, the new Wolverine is R-rated. I think these things don't factor it, my theory is people gravitate more toward R-rated films than PG-13, I think the PG-13 thing is betwixt and between now. It's not fundamentally rooted in any metric where you can go, 'Okay, we can prove that this had success because it was PG-13.' Look at the Matrix trilogy, that was wildly successful and they were all R-rated films. Unless things change, I think we're making a Bad Boys film and that's an R-rated movie."

Bad Boys 3 is slated to hit theaters on January 12, 2018.