Michael Bay’s Sudden ‘Fast and Loose’ Departure: Did the Stars Predict This Explosive Exit from Will Smith’s Netflix Action Flick?
Added on August 7, 2025 inMovie News Cards
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So, here’s a cosmic riddle for you: what do you get when Michael Bay, Will Smith, and a memory-loss CIA crime boss walk into a Netflix pitch meeting under the mercurial skies of October? Apparently, a creative fallout that’s got Bay bouncing off the set of Fast and Loose! Just as Mercury’s known for stirring up communication snafus, these Hollywood heavyweights couldn’t quite sync up — leading Bay to drop out of the film. With Netflix cooking up production plans for 2026 and a screenplay that reads like a CIA dossier gone sideways, the stakes are high, and the drama behind the scenes is juicier than a summer blockbuster. Think of it as the universe’s own plot twist, leaving us to wonder: will another director step in to decode this tangled spy story? Buckle up — this show’s far from over. LEARN MORE
Michael Bay has exited Netflix‘s action film Fast and Loose amid creative differences with star Will Smith, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
Fast and Loose focuses on a crime boss who loses his memory after an attack and gradually learns that he was leading a double life as a CIA agent. Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, Chris Bremner and Eric Pearson worked on the screenplay. Jon and Erich Hoeber wrote the original script after selling their pitch to Netflix.
The streamer is looking to begin production in 2026 and will be focused on attaching a filmmaker in the meantime. THR reported in October that Bay was set to helm the project.
Fast and Loose has been in the works since before Smith’s slap of Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars ceremony. THR previously reported that David Leitch had exited the project the week before the infamous Academy Awards telecast to start work on The Fall Guy, the Ryan Gosling-Emily Blunt action-comedy feature that Universal released last year.
Producers for Fast and Loose include Leitch and Kelly McCormick for 87North, along with Smith. Robert Simonds and Noah Fogelson serve as executive producers for STXfilms.
Bay previously directed Smith in the 1995 action-comedy Bad Boys and its 2003 sequel. Smith and Martin Lawrence most recently played their characters from the franchise in its latest sequel, Bad Boys: Ride or Die, which Sony released in theaters last summer. That movie, having surpassed $400 million at the global box office, helped revive Smith’s standing as an in-demand film star following the Oscars fallout.
The filmmaker’s most recent project as director was the 2022 Universal movie Ambulance, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Also known for his work on the Transformers franchise, Bay previously helmed Netflix’s Ryan Reynolds-led action flick 6 Underground that hit the streamer in 2019. Among Bay’s planned projects include a feature adaptation of video game franchise OutRun with Sydney Sweeney.
Deadline was first to report on Bay leaving Fast and Loose.
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