Bad Boys 3 is gonna come for you

Climb down off that ledge, Martin Lawrence - all is not lost! News has arrived that Bad Boys 3 is in the offing, which means you can help to revive pal Will Smith's flagging career with your huge box office appeal.

Not content with the sequel horror show that was Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, Michael Bay is now rumoured to be lining up a new instalment of Bad Boys, following the global box office success of Bad Boys II, itself a poor follow-up to the excellent first film released in 1995.

Columbia Pictures have hired Peter Craig to write a screenplay for the 'threequel' and the hope is that both Smith and Lawrence will find a suitable window in their schedules to reprise their roles (hint: Lawrence may have to rearrange "goatee-washing day").

Word has it that everyone involved in the previous Smith / Lawrence / Bay / Bruckheimer outings are all keen to collaborate on a third film, with Smith and Lawrence both asking to sign up for it while they were still making Bad Boys II... six years ago.

Hold on the cheers/jeers though - there are few reasons not to get too excited about this choice piece of news just yet, not least the concern that Peter Craig doesn't actually have any proven screenplay credentials to his name (although he is in the middle of a few unfinished projects at the moment).

Also, what with Smith's possible Hancock franchise revving up another gear, and Bay coming off the back of earning big bucks for smashing toys together, there's a chance that time and financial constraints will cost the film some of the elements of its predecessors' winning formula.

Looks like you may want to leave that window open for just a little while longer, Lawrence - just in case.