EXCLUSIVE: Looks like the Bad Boys are back in town and the Boys from Belgium will bring them to the screen. Sony Pictures is negotiating with the filmmaking team of Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah to direct Bad Boys For Life, the action comedy that will bring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence back together, with an August production start being sighted. Jerry Bruckheimer is back as producer.

Sony

The most recent draft of the script is by Chris Bremner. This has long been a priority project at Sony, to re-team the stars of the 1995 original, which helped turned Smith into a global superstar and put Lawrence on the A-list as his partner.

El Arbi & Fallah are the Moroccan-born duo who were raised in Belgium and who burst onto the scene with Black, a Romeo & Juliet-type drama set in the world of organized crime in Belgium. It was a sensation in Toronto. The duo most recently directed the pilot and establishing episodes of the FX crack plague series Snowfall, and they are attached to several big movies including Beverly Hills Cop 4.

They are repped by CAA, Management 360 and attorney Karl Austen.