'Bad Boys for Life' has lost its director.

Joe Carnahan

Joe Carnahan

Joe Carnahan - famous for 'The A-Team' - has reportedly pulled out of the third movie in the 'Bad Boys' franchise due to "creative differences", plunging the next instalment of the Will Smith and Martin Lawrence movies into crisis, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Not only that, but Carnahan was also the script writer, which means if they are going to pull off the movie, the first in 14 years, they may need to recruit a new scriptwriter too.

The long-awaited sequel had already been pushed back to January 2018.

The original films starred Will as Mike Lowery, and Martin a Marcus Burnett, who are two pals and detectives in the narcotics division of the Miami Police Department.

The first film, released in 1995, charts the duo's battle to recover $100 million of seized Mafia heroin stolen from a police vault before their department gets shut down.

'Bad Boys II' appeared in 2003 and finds the duo investigating the flow of highly-potent ecstasy into the Miami, and although it wasn't received well be the critics the film went on to make $270 million worldwide.

Smith, 48, and Lawrence, 51, will reprise their roles as drug cops Lowery and Burnett should the movie still go ahead.

The delay in getting the film to the big screen was blamed on a number of issues, including Smith's hectic schedule.

Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer of the original two films, revealed back in April last year, that the script was still being written.

In spite of all the difficulties getting the third movie to cinemas Sony reportedly also has a fourth film on its books and plans to release that film in 2019.