This is far from truth for Bad Boys tho.
Bad Boys is out and out a Bay action movie series with Will Smith's brand of charisma and the lead chemistry as a plus.
People think that the cult status of first 2 movies is only US limited phenomenon but Bayhem brand of action isnt hampered by primitive conventions like language or black comedy, ITS universal.
Here in India Bad Boys 2 has the same or greater Cable tv cult action movie status as that of the original Fast and Furious movies and I think its the same for other regions of the world (Id say Latin America probably loves the shit of it ala Fast).
Had Sony revived this series successfully in the early 2010s and not now I would say they could've gotten their lite FnF like franchise right now.