The comedy duo were attached to the film at Disney before Will Smith and Martin Lawrence came aboard when the film moved to Sony.
In 1995, when the original Bad Boys debuted, it was only Will Smith’s second major film role, after Six Degrees of Separation. At the time, Smith was mostly known as a successful musician and television star because of Fresh Prince of Bel Air. In fact, producer Jerry Bruckheimer couldn’t even get the film made with Will Smith attached until he managed to snag the bigger star at the time, Martin Lawrence, although they first went after an even bigger star in the early ’90s than Lawrence: Arsenio Hall. Hall, however, passed, and Lawrence and his box-office clout finally got the film made. However, before Will Smith and Martin Lawrence came along and signed onto the film with Sony, the project had been rattling around at Disney with a completely different pairing, one so bizarre that it’s almost impossible to imagine today: SNL stars Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey.
