Bad Boys for Life Post-Credits Scene Almost Didn't Make the Cut

All of the trailers and marketing for Bad Boys for Life made it seem as though the movie would bring a final ending to the series, wrapping things up in a nice, neat trilogy. However, that didn't turn out to be the case. Bad Boys for Life is the most acclaimed and successful installment in the franchise, and the actual narrative of the film strongly hinted that there was more story to tell in a future sequel. Even before Sony put Bad Boys 4 into early stages of development, the post-credits scene in the recent Bad Boys hit told audiences that more was on the way.

The post-credits scene showed Will Smith's Mike Lowrey heading into a high-security prison to visit his son, Armando, who was the main antagonist for the majority of the movie. Armando stopped his violent ways when he learned the truth about his father, but he still had to go to prison to pay for the things he'd already done. In the scene, Mike approached Armando and tells him that he needs some help on a new assignment, and the assistance could help lessen his sentence.

This scene clearly sets up a potential Bad Boys 4, which makes it seem like it was maybe a last-minute addition to the film. However, according to directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the scene was filmed early on and they went back and forth on whether or not they wanted to leave it in. Thanks to the reactions of text audiences, they ultimately decided to leave the scene as the film's final ending.

"That scene was in and out the movie the whole time," El Arbi explained to ComicBook.com during an exclusive interview. "We shot the scene and then we were not really sure if we had to put it in the movie. So it went like in and out the whole time and at a certain point we were doing the test audiences and so at the last minute we made the decision to keep it in because it was also the closure with the Armando character and it sets up also maybe a Bad Boys 4."

"And we had, while we were making the movie, ideas because we love the characters, and we love the AMMO team, and we love Mike and Marcus, and we were thinking of if we would make a fourth one," he continued. "So by making the decision of putting the last scene in it was more to see if the audience really loved it, that we could then maybe [make] Bad Boys 4 real. And seeing now that it has a lot of positive critic and people love it so then now we can really make it concrete, all the ideas that we have."

Fortunately, we'll get to see how the story of Mike and Armando plays out with Bad Boys 4, which is currently being written by Chris Bremner.