Ride or Die’ Passes Major Domestic Box Office Milestone

Having comfortably settled as the primary source of counter-programming as Inside Out 2 runs rampage across the country, Sony’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die passed a major new domestic box office milestone on its third Tuesday in theaters. Buoyed by discounted ticket prices, the action-comedy starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence grossed $2.5 million on its 19th day of release, which marks a healthy 25% increase from its Monday haul of $2 million. With this, Bad Boys: Ride or Die has now passed the $150 million milestone domestically.

The film’s exact domestic haul stands at $151 million. Combined with the $142 million that it has made from overseas markets, Bad Boys: Ride or Die’s cumulative global haul now stands at $293 million. The movie will surpass the $300 million global milestone this weekend — its fourth — and will then begin the difficult mission of passing its predecessor’s $426 million lifetime haul. Released four years ago, Bad Boys for Life successfully rejuvenated the long-running franchise, and narrowly avoided annihilation at the hands of the pandemic.

The third movie concluded its domestic run with $204 million, a benchmark that isn’t completely unattainable for Bad Boys: Ride or Die. Considering the strong legs that Smith’s summer movies tend to have, there’s still an outside chance of the fourth movie ending up becoming the franchise’s biggest-ever hit domestically. This past week, Bad Boys: Ride or Die overtook Bad Boys II’s $143 million lifetime domestic haul, in addition to passing its $273 million lifetime global haul as well. Of course, Bad Boys II was released all the way back in 2003, so its grosses haven’t been adjusted for inflation. Interestingly, the second movie cost more ($130 million) than Bad Boys: Ride or Die, which is said to have been produced for $100 million.

The ‘Bad Boys’ Franchise Began Nearly Three Decades Ago

With its $151 million haul, Bad Boys: Ride or Dieis the sixth-biggest film of the year so far, ahead of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, and behind Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. In the coming few days, the movie will also overtake Shark Tale, The Pursuit of Happyness and Hitch to become one of Smith’s 10 highest-grossing movies of all time at the domestic box office. Incidentally, Bad Boys: Ride or Die is Smith’s first theatrical release since the infamous Oscars slap incident, when he attacked comedian Chris Rock during the Academy Awards telecast a couple of years ago, and got himself banned for a decade. Since then, he has starred in the Apple TV+ historical drama Emancipation.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die has a better Rotten Tomatoes score than that would-be awards contender. It currently holds a “fresh” 64% approval rating on the review aggregator. At a fabulous 97%, the film’s audience score is even better. Directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah certainly know how to make a crowd pleaser; the movie’s success raises further doubts about the narrative that was spun following the cancelation of their DC movie Batgirl because of its reported poor quality and lack of commercial viability. Both their Bad Boys movies have been positively received by audiences, and have grossed a combined total of over $700 million worldwide. You can watch Bad Boys: Ride or Die in theaters, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.