Writer Will Beall Turned His Near-Death Experience Into Comic Gold in ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’

In the opening scenes of “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) is getting married as friends and family — most notably, Lowrey’s partner Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) — dance in celebration. The party ends abruptly when Marcus suffers a heart attack, but since this is a “Bad Boys” movie, the medical emergency quickly becomes a source of comedy, as Marcus suddenly feels invulnerable and begins taking ridiculous risks — leading to a role reversal from previous “Bad Boys” films. It’s what makes “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” a kind of perfect sequel: It retains the flavor of earlier “Bad Boys” movies but tweaks the formula just enough to provide a new experience for the audience.

Striking that kind of balance is becoming a trademark of screenwriter Will Beall, who has two of the most hotly anticipated sequels of 2024 in release this summer. In addition to “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” Beall is a writer on Netflix’s “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F,” the long-awaited fourth installment in the beloved Eddie Murphy series (streaming July 3). Both films are produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who was also behind the movie that Beall sees as the gold standard for sequels. “I think ‘Maverick’ is the best movie to come out in the last 20 years,” he told IndieWire. “It’s like a fusion reactor of entertainment. When I saw that, I thought, ‘Oh, this is something to strive for.'” What Beall responded to in “Maverick” was the fact that it delivered the pleasure of nostalgia but worked completely on its own, a quality that served as a guiding principle for both “Axel F” and “Bad Boys: Ride or Die.”

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“In a ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ movie, in a ‘Halloween’ movie, in a ‘Top Gun’ movie, there are certain things you know you have to have,” Beall said. “So how are you going to fulfill the audience’s expectations but also subvert them? That’s the assignment.” In the case of “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” the “Freaky Friday”-esque idea of Mike and Marcus switching personalities grew out of a very real — and much less funny — experience of Beall’s back in 2019. “I had what they call a widow maker heart attack,” he said. “They defibrillated me 13 times. Apparently when I got to the hospital I was blue and they looked at me and said, ‘Dude, that guy’s dead. It’s not happening.’ But one of the nurses said, ‘I don’t know, let me keep trying.'”

Beall was in a coma after the initial heart attack, and when he came out of it, he was surprised to find that he didn’t feel weakened. “I had the opposite reaction,” he said. “I felt invigorated that I survived.” When the assignment to write “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” came along, Beall saw the perfect way to turn his near-tragedy into entertainment. “I thought, what if Mike suddenly has something to lose in a way that he hasn’t before, and Marcus has come out of his heart attack with the idea that he’s unkillable? It seemed like a fun concept, and the guys just ran with it.”

Marcus’ heart attack isn’t the only example of Beall using personal experience to inform his work; his cop movies are also filled with touches of texture and detail that come from his life as an LAPD officer before he became a screenwriter. Beall is quick to point out, however, that the relationship between his real-life work as a homicide detective and the action in “Axel F” and “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” shouldn’t be overstated. “These movies kind of exist in their own reality,” he said. “It’s not like we’re making ‘Training Day.'” Beall says that his writing is less informed by his background in the LAPD than by the movies he loved as a 13-year-old — one of which was the original “Beverly Hills Cop.”

“‘Beverly Hills Cop’ came out during that window in my adolescence when I was really falling in love with movies,” Beall said. “By any standard it’s a perfect movie — and Martin Brest made two of them back to back with ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ and ‘Midnight Run.'” While Beall’s love for “Beverly Hills Cop” made him an ideal candidate to reboot the franchise, it also made him terrified of screwing it up. “I was super intimidated. First of all, you have to pitch Eddie Murphy. So you’re pitching Axel Foley! It was during the tail end of the pandemic, so it was on Zoom. That helped, because he was like a postage stamp size — if it had been in person, I don’t know if I could have done it.”

Once Beall got the job, he labored to be worthy of the series that had helped him become a movie fan. “People ask about screenwriting craft, and my thing is, I’m just forcing myself to write and hoping it doesn’t turn out shitty,” he said. “And it usually turns out shitty the first 50 times. So you just keep hammering and get notes from a lot of smart people.” While most of the audience for “Axel F” will watch the movie at home on Netflix, Beall is gratified that “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” has brought audiences back to the big screen during a challenging time for theatrical exhibition. “I can still remember certain theatrical experiences. I remember where I was sitting and how I leaned forward in my seat during ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.’ There’s nothing like that shared experience, so it’s awesome to think that people are going to this movie and enjoying it together.”

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