El Arbi (left) and Fallah (right)
Adil El Arbi (born June 30, 1988) and Bilall Fallah (born January 4, 1986) are Belgian film and television directors and screenwriters of Moroccan descent who always work together.
They were born and grew up in Flanders. They went to film school together and have since gained much Hollywood cred with Bad Boys for Life, the second sequel to Michael Bay's Bad Boys. To wit, afterwards they got directing gigs on the Disney+ Marvel Cinematic Universe show based on Kamala Khan / Ms. Marvel as well as a Batgirl film for HBO Max (which got shelved by Warner Bros. Discovery in post-production). They're now set to helm the fourth Bad Boys film.
They are also executive producers of Snowfall.
Directing credits
- Snowfall (2017; 2 episodes)
- Bad Boys
- Bad Boys for Life (2020)
- Bad Boys: Ride or Die (2024)
- Ms. Marvel (2022)
- Batgirl (completed in 2022, unreleased)
- Rebel (2022)
Tropes & Trivia about their career:
- Breakthrough Hit: The critical and box office success of Bad Boys for Life put their names on the map and made them sought after.
- The Shelf of Movie Languishment: Their unreleased Batgirl film for HBO Max starring Leslie Grace, Brendan Fraser and Michael Keaton that was quite shockingly shelved by Warner Bros. Discovery while it was in post-production due to cost-cutting measures, a tax write-off and a refocus of the company on theatrical releases. They tried to save the footage (likely for personal use) but found out it was deleted from WBD's servers. Considering it cost $90 million to produce, it is one of the most expensive unreleased films ever made. El Arbi and Fallah mentioned in an interview that they attempted to download a copy but the studio had already removed it from the servers. Private screenings for the cast and crew were held, but what happened to it after that is currently unknown.
- What Could Have Been:
- The shelved Batgirl film is a pretty big case of this.
- They were slated to helm the fourth Beverly Hills Cop movie. Mark Molloy replaced them eventually.
