Seth Rogen And Evan Goldberg Helped Judd Apatow Rewrite ‘Bad Boys II’
This weekend brings the release ofBad Boys for Life, but before the movie hits theaters, we’ve got a surprising bit of trivia that just came to light aboutMichael Bay’sBad Boys II.
Even though the script forBad Boys IIwas written byRon Shelton(Bull Durham, White Men Can’t Jump) andJerry Stahl(Moonlighting, Twin Peaks), there was a rewrite done byThe 40-Year Old VirginandKnocked Upwriter/directorJudd Apatow, and he askedSuperbadandPineapple ExpresswritersSeth RogenandEvan Goldbergto help him out. Yeah, s*** just got real.
This revelation about how Seth Rogen rewroteBad Boys IIwith his longtime production partner Evan Goldberg came about suddenly on Twitter in an exchange with /Film contributor Eric Vespe. Here’s how it started:
I helped rewrite bad boys 2
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen)June 09, 2025
Then comedian and How Did This Get Made? co-host Paul Scheer wanted to know as much as Rogen was willing to dish about it. Unfortunately, since this happened roughly 18 years ago, he doesn’t remember much, but he did recall a couple of gags that were in the movie that came from their rewrtie. Rogen wrote on Twitter:
Judd was rewriting it and me and Evan were broke so he gave us a bit of money to help. I don’t remember much but we all definitely wrote the joke where they don’t know the words to the song, and where Martin shoots the machine gun in the car by accident. And probably many more…
Having Mike Lowery (Will Smith) and Marcus Barnett (Martin Lawrence) not know the words to theCopstheme song is one of the funniest parts of the entireBad Boysfranchise. The reggae song byInner Circleis the basis for the title of theBad Boysfranchise, even though the “bad boys” part of the song refers to the criminals and not the cops, which was always a little confusing to me. But I digress.
This rewrite happened at a time when Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg were clearly just getting started as writers. By 2003, Rogen had already written a few episodes of the FOX comedy seriesUndeclared, in which he also co-starred. It was essentially a spiritual sequel toFreaks and Geekswith many of the same talents involved, including Judd Apatow as the creator. Clearly Apatow saw potential in Rogen and Goldberg, and the rest is history.
Finding out details like this make us want to know all the other times comedy writers like Rogen and Goldberg rewrote scripts without being credited. Studios always have punch-up sessions where they have comedians add jokes to make a script funnier when necessary, but you rarely hear about what moments actually ended up in the script because of them.
Bad Boys for Lifearrives in theaters this weekend, and apparentlyit’s a good time at the movies.
