Martin Lawrence Will Smith in ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’

Sony’s Bad Boys: Ride or Die jolted the battered summer box office back to life with a better-than-expected domestic opening of $56 million and $104.6 million globally.

Moreover, it puts Will Smith on the road to a career comeback two years after the infamous Oscars slap.

Ride or Die, reuniting Smith with Martin Lawrence, is the fourth outing in Sony’s long-running franchise and earned an A- CinemaScore in North America alongside generally positive reviews. Just as promising, 44 percent of the audience was between ages 18 and 34, showing Smith has a following among younger consumers. Black moviegoers made up the largest quadrant of the audience with 44 percent.

Ride or Die is arguably the first film of the summer to come in notably ahead of tracking, which had it opening in the $48 million to $50 million range. It’s also the second biggest domestic launch of the season behind Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, which debuted to $58 million domestically.

The $100 million film is the follow-up to Bad Boys for Life, which opened to $62 million domestically in January 2022 on its way to earning $426 million at the global box office before theaters were shut due to the pandemic. The Bad Boys series is produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.