We’ve been hearing about the development of Bad Boys 3 for quite a while now. Michael Bay directed the first two movies in the franchise, both of which starred Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, but we found out back in June that Sony was actually in talks with The Grey, Smokin’ Aces, The A-Team, and Narc director Joe Carnahan to re-write a script penned by David Guggenheim and possibly direct the movie instead of Bay, who’s thought to be too busy with his upcoming 13 Hours and the Transformers franchise.

Now Sony has announced a release date for Bad Boys 3. But even more surprising is that they also have an early release date reserved for Bad Boys 4, as well.

For Bad Boys 3, Sony has set a February 7, 2017 release date. This is a bit of an odd release date for a movie you would expect to be part of the summer movie season. In a much more fitting date, Bad Boys 4 has been set for a July 3, 2019 release.

Oddly enough, stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence still haven’t even been officially confirmed to be returning for the next movie. It’s been reported that Sony was moving the development along quickly so that something was ready to show Smith once he completes work on Warner Brothers’ DC Extended Universe movie Suicide Squad, in which he plays Deadshot, so apparently these dates rely on that working out. Lawrence was a guest on Conan last year and said that he spoke to producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who told him all was looking good. So everyone seems to be confident the necessary deals will get done to at least get the third movie made.

The first two movies, Bad Boys in 1995 and Bad Boys II in 2003, followed best friends and partners in the Miami Police Department narcotics division Mike Lowrey (Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Lawrence).

[Source: The Wrap]