Adil El Arbi (born June 30, 1988) and Bilall Fallah (born January 4, 1986) are Moroccan-Belgian film and television directors. The duo, collectively billed as Adil & Bilall, are known for writing and directing the feature films Image (2014), Black (2015), and Gangsta (2018), as well as directing both Bad Boys for Life (2020) and Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024), the third and fourth installments of the Bad Boys franchise starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence.
Career
Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah met during their film studies at the Hogeschool voor Wetenschap en Kunsten in Schaerbeek, Brussels, Belgium. During their studies, the first project that they directed was a short film named Broeders (2011), which was appreciated by critics; their later films, Black (2015) and Patser (2018), also received positive reception.[1]
They directed the first two episodes in the TV series Snowfall, which aired on July 5 and 12 in 2017,[citation needed] as well as fellow belgians and friends Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike's music videos, such as "When I Grow Up", which features American rapper Wiz Khalifa, and ''Melody'', which instead features Steve Aoki and Ummet Ozcan.[2]
The duo were attached to direct the fourth installment of the Beverly Hills Cop film series, in which Eddie Murphy was to reprise his role.[3][4] Later, in April 2022, it was announced that the duo would no longer direct the fourth Beverly Hills Cop film as previously intended.[5]
Bad Boys for Life was theatrically released in the United States on January 17, 2020, by Sony Pictures Releasing.[10] It became a worldwide box office hit, grossing $424.6 million internationally.[11] It became both the highest-grossing film in the Bad Boys franchise and the highest-grossing film released in January.[12]
In February 2017, Bilall Fallah and Adil El Arbi were attached to direct the pilot episode of the WGN America series Scalped,[16] which filmed in New Mexico in early April,[17] but in November, after WGN screened it, they decided to pass on the series, and it has never been released.[18]
In May 2021, it was announced that the duo would direct a film featuring Batgirl for HBO Max.[19] In August 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery made the decision to write the completed Batgirl film off for tax purposes, leaving it unreleased.[20] With a reported $90 million budget, Batgirl is one of the highest budget movies in history to be produced but not released.[20]
