Bay's work is generally held in low esteem by film critics. While The Rock (1996), Transformers (2007), 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016), and Ambulance (2022) received moderately positive reviews, most of his other films, particularly the four Transformers sequels, have been received negatively by critics.
Bay often traces his interest in action films back to an incident during his childhood. As a boy, he attached some firecrackers to a toy train and filmed the ensuing fiery disaster with his mother's 8 millimeter camera. The fire department was called and he was grounded.[15]
Bay got his start in the film industry interning with George Lucas when he was 15, filing the storyboards for Raiders of the Lost Ark, which he thought was going to be terrible. His opinion changed after seeing it in the theater and he was so impressed by the experience that he decided to become a film director.[16] He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1986, majoring in both English and film.[17][18] He was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity and a favorite student of film historian Jeanine Basinger.[19] For his graduate work, he attended Art Center College of Design in Pasadena where he also studied film.[20]
Career
1992–2005: Breakthrough and stardom
Bay began working at Propaganda Films, directing commercials and music videos, two weeks after finishing his postgraduate degree.[20] His 90-second World War II–inspired Coca-Cola advertisement was picked up by Capitol Records. His first national commercial was for the Red Cross, which won a Clio Award in 1992.[21][22] He directed Goodby, Silverstein & Partners' "Aaron Burr" commercial as part of the "Got Milk?" ad campaign for the California Milk Processors Board in 1993, which also won a Grand Prix Clio Award for Commercial of the Year.[23][24]
Bay's success in music videos gained the attention of producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, who selected him to direct his first feature-length film, Bad Boys. It was shot in Miami in 1994 and starred Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. The action film was a breakout role for Smith, who was making a transition from television at the time. Shooting in Miami was a good experience for Bay, who would later own a home in the city and spend a great deal of time there.[25] The film was completed for $19 million and grossed a remarkable $141 million in the summer of 1995.[26] Bay's success led to a strong partnership and friendship with Jerry Bruckheimer.[27]
His follow-up film, The Rock (1996), an action movie set on Alcatraz Island and in the San Francisco Bay area, starred Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage and Ed Harris. It was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, the latter of whom died five months before its release. The film is dedicated to him.[28] Connery and Cage won 'Best On-Screen Duo' at the MTV Movie Awards in 1997, and the film was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Achievement in Sound category for the work of Greg P. Russell, Kevin O'Connell and Keith A. Wester.[29][30] After the success of The Rock, Bay established his production company Bay Films, with a two-picture deal with Disney.
In 2001, Bay directed Pearl Harbor, starring Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale and Cuba Gooding, Jr. It was released on Memorial Day weekend in 2001, again produced by Bay with Jerry Bruckheimer. It received four Academy Award nominations, including Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Editing and Best Song. Kevin O'Connell received another nomination for Best Sound, but did not win. Pearl Harbor won in the category for Sound Editing, making it Bay's first (and, to date, only) film to win an Oscar.[36] Bay also directed the music video for the nominated track "There You'll Be" by vocal artist Faith Hill.[20]
Bay reteamed with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence for Bad Boys II, a sequel that was Bay's fifth collaboration with Jerry Bruckheimer. It grossed $138 million domestically, enough to cover the production budget, and $273 million worldwide, almost twice as much as the first movie. In 2005, Bay directed The Island, a science fiction film starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. It was the first film Bay made without Jerry Bruckheimer as a producer. It cost $126 million to produce and earned $36 million domestically and $127 million overseas, for a total of $163 million. Bay said that he was not comfortable with the domestic marketing campaign, as it confused the audience about the film's true subject.[37]
2007–2016
Bay on the set of Transformers, New Mexico, May 2006
In 2007, he teamed up with executive producer Steven Spielberg to direct Transformers, a live action film based on the Transformers franchise. Released in July 2007, by November of that year it had made over $709 million worldwide.[38]
Bay returned as director and executive producer for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which was released on June 24, 2009 and grossed over $832 million worldwide. Although it received mostly negative reviews by critics,[39] including aggressively critical reviews by American film critics such as Roger Ebert,[40]Michael Phillips[41] and David Denby (who referred to Bay as "stunningly, almost viciously, untalented"),[42] the film was well received by its intended audience and one of the highest-grossing of 2009.[43][44] In 2010, it earned seven Golden Raspberry Award nominations, and won three: Worst Picture, Worst Director and Worst Screenplay.[45] It was also one of the best-selling DVD and Blu-ray Discs of 2009, second only to Twilight in DVD format, and the #1 of all time in Blu-ray format until it was surpassed by Blu-ray sales of James Cameron's Avatar in April 2010.[46][47][48]
A fourth Bay-directed Transformers movie, Transformers: Age of Extinction, was released in June 2014.[56] Starring Mark Wahlberg, it earned $1.1 billion at the global box office.[57] On January 12, 2016, Paramount Pictures released 13 Hours, which Bay produced and directed, based on the 2012 Benghazi attack. While the lowest-grossing film of Bay's career at the box office, it went on to massive DVD sales on its digital release in May 2016, earning over $40 million in home video revenue.[58]
2017–present
On May 23, 2017, Bay was honored with his own hand-and-footprint ceremony at The TCL Chinese Theatre. His English mastiff, Rebel, put her paw in the cement with him.[59]
Bay's fifth Transformers film as director, Transformers: The Last Knight, was released on June 21, 2017.[60] It grossed $68.5 million in its five-day North American opening weekend, the franchise's lowest opening, and $605 million worldwide.[61][62] In a 2016 Rolling Stone interview, Bay said it would be his final Transformers film as director.[63]
In 2021, it was reported that Bay requested financial compensation from film studio Paramount Pictures for indirectly limiting his income as a result of Paramount cutting the theatrical-only run of A Quiet Place Part II from 90 to 45 days due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bay, and other producers as well as actors for the film, as is typically the case, receive payment in part based on box-office performance, and a reduction in the theatrical run's exclusivity affected the pay they received.[70]
Bay's next film was 2022's Ambulance, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Eiza González. It follows two bank robbers who hijack an ambulance and take two hostages. Shot during the COVID-19 pandemic in Los Angeles,[71] it was released in the US on April 8, 2022 by Universal Pictures.[72]
In February 2023, Bay was hired to direct and executive produce an untitled action drama series for A&E Studios and Amazon Studios.[73]
After leaving Propaganda Films, Bay and producer Scott Gardenhour, also formerly at Propaganda, formed The Institute for the Development of Enhanced Perceptual Awareness (now known as The Institute), to produce commercials and other projects. Through The Institute, Bay has directed and produced spots for Victoria's Secret, Lexus, Budweiser, Reebok, Mercedes-Benz, and Nike. One of his Victoria's Secret ads was for the 2009 "A Thousand Fantasies" holiday campaign.[76]
451 Media Group
Bay co-founded 451 Media Group with Doug Nunes (who serves as CEO), and with John and Anthony Gentile, who previously marketed brands such as Micronauts, Visionaries, Sky Dancers and the Power Glove. In 2015, the company announced an interactive publishing division to offer "augmented reality" content from printed graphic novels with digital video. The graphic novels employ Touchcode technology from T+ink (previously used in the Power Glove), in which ink used in the printing process unlocks access to exclusive content that is housed on the Machinima Network, which is transferred to users' touch-screen-enabled mobile devices when the printed books are touched to those devices. The company's premiere slate of graphic novels was unveiled at the October 2015 New York Comic Con. The creators involved included Scott Rosenberg, Skip Woods, George Pelecanos, Mark Mallouk, Clay McLeod Chapman and Peter and Paul Williams.[77][78][79][80]
Rogue Initiative
In June 2016, Bay joined The Rogue Initiative,[81] a production studio and technology company, as a strategic advisor and stakeholder. The studio merges Hollywood production with interactive talent to generate story-driven content for games, mobile, virtual reality, mixed reality, television and feature film. As part of the partnership, Bay will develop and direct a multiplatform action-adventure game and cinematic VR experiences, based on an original IP conceived by him.
His movies look like a more compacted, cartoonish messy version of films by British commercial directors like Adrian Lyne and Ridley and Tony Scott. He packs each frame with baroque detail and floods the screen with light and smog; he prefers extreme wide angles or punishingly tight telephoto close-ups, which make each shot dense enough to burst.
Bay's work has been poorly received by film critics, and his name is often used pejoratively in art-house circles.[88] Bay has responded to his critics, saying: "I make movies for teenage boys. Oh, dear, what a crime."[89] Besides accusing him of making films that pander to a young demographic, critics and audiences have been critical of elements of Bay's filmmaking style such as the overuse of Dutch angles, extreme patriotism, overly broad and sophomoric humor, excessive product placement,[90] oversaturated orange and teal color grading,[91] reusing footage from his previous films,[92] and his preference of action and spectacle over story and characters.[93][94][95] Another point of contention with Bay's films is his portrayal and use of offensive racial stereotypes as comedic relief; one alleged example being the characters Skids and Mudflap in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.[96]
Bay has also been accused of heavily objectifying women in his films, with critics describing Bay's manner of filming actresses as "lascivious" and "pornographic". He has faced criticism for routinely making sexist remarks and showing female characters in a stereotypical light.[97] He came under scrutiny for firing Megan Fox in retaliation[98] after she made comments about him mistreating her on the set of the Transformers films and compared him to Adolf Hitler and Napoleon.[94][99][100] Bay published an open letter written by three anonymous members of the crew of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen that referred to Fox as, among other things, "Ms. Sourpants", "porn star", "unfriendly bitch", and "dumb-as-a-rock".[101]
In 2009, it was reported that Fox, at the age of 15, was made to wash Bay's car while auditioning for Transformers.[102][103] In 2020, Fox revisited the incident and denied that she was underaged (for Transformers) or "made to 'wash' or work on someone's cars in a way that was extraneous from the materials in the actual script."[104] Fox was 15 when she first appeared as a bikini-clad extra in the Bay film Bad Boys II.[101]
Actress Kate Beckinsale also spoke out publicly by reporting that she was body-shamed and regularly criticized for her appearance by Bay during the making of Pearl Harbor.[99][100]
Six of Bay's films have been nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture and Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Transformers: Age of Extinction and Transformers: The Last Knight), with Revenge of the Fallen and Age of Extinction winning the award for "Worst Director". Revenge of the Fallen also became the first film by Bay and also the highest-grossing film to be awarded "Worst Picture".
Conversely, some critics and actors have praised Bay's films and style. Film historian Jeanine Basinger has described him as "the most cinematic and fluid and unafraid director", while Scott Foundas of Variety has lauded his "grand, epic vision" and positively compared him to William Wyler. Actress Scarlett Johansson wrote that Bay is "a truly ambitious storyteller who celebrates characters actors and leading men and women alike."[105]
^Wilson, Stephanie (September 5, 2008). "Behind the Camera". Haute Living. Seth Semilof. Archived from the original on October 5, 2011. Retrieved July 5, 2010.
^Simon, Alex (February 28, 2008) [June 2001]. "Jerry Bruckheimer: The Hollywood Interview". reprinted by The Hollywood Interview.com (originally published by Venice Magazine). Nancy Martinez. Retrieved July 5, 2010.
^Cheshire, Godfrey; Zoller Seitz, Matt; White, Armond (2020). The Press Gang: Writings on Cinema from New York Press, 1991-2011. Seven Stories Press.
^Selcke, Dan (July 7, 2014). "Here's a learned analysis of why Michael Bay movies are bad, but pretty". The A.V. Club. Retrieved January 16, 2016. "No matter how many buildings, spacecrafts, [sic] and sentient robots Michael Bay explodes, the director can't seem to get any respect. His movies are panned by critics, and his bombastic filmmaking style is routinely mocked by respectable, erudite writers on the Internet."
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