Michael Bay
Michael Benjamin Bay (born
February 17,
1965) is an
American film director and
producer. His
films are known for their fast paced action sequences and ultra-
kinetic cinematography.
His most recent film,
The Island, was
released in 2005. It was the first of his movies to
flop at the U.S. box office, an unusual fate for a director whose previous four films made more than $100 million each. International markets were more accepting of The Island, pulling in $160,285,073 worldwide.
Prior to his film career, he directed
music videos for artists including
Aerosmith,
Tina Turner,
Meat Loaf, and the
Divinyls. He has also directed
television commercials for brands including
Got Milk?,
Budweiser,
Nike,
Levi's,
Victoria's Secret,
Chevrolet,
Lexus and
AT&T.
Bay is a graduate of
Wesleyan University and
Art Center College of Design.
Bay was raised in
Westwood district of Los Angeles by his adoptive parentsâ€"Jimmy and Harriet Bayâ€"who hailed from Canada. His dad, an accountant, died while Bay was filming "Pearl Harbor."
According to a 2001
Rolling Stone article, written as part of the publicity for
Pearl Harbor, Bay is adopted, and he decided to try to find out who his biological parents were when he was 20. The article says "someone told him it was
John Frankenheimer," but the claim is deliberately vague::"I got it out of my [biological] mom, I think...anyway, it's now this big rumor around Hollywood."The article later points out that Frankenheimer denies that Bay is his son. As of 2005, his official website has an FAQ entry about the subject, which reads::Q: Is it true that Michael's biological father is a Hollywood director? Who is it?:A: While this issue is none of our business, I'll answer this question in Michael's own words: "You can probably hurt a lot of people by saying [who it is]."
Frankenheimer eventually took a paternity test to demonstrate that Bay was not his son.
Bay is a keen amateur conchologist (shell collector). His favourite shell is the Peppery furrow shell (Scrobicularia plana).
Romantically, he has had relationships with former
Playboy playmates
Jaime Bergman and
Lisa Dergan.
As of 2006 Bay has directed six
feature films and is scheduled to direct a seventh:
Director
Transformers (
2007) Filming
The Island (
2005)
Bad Boys II (
2003)
Pearl Harbor (
2001)
Armageddon (
1998)
The Rock (
1996)
Bad Boys (
1995)
Producer
*
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)
The Amityville Horror (2005)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
Bay is the focus of the song "The End of an Act" from the
Team America: World Police soundtrack.
Trey Parker and
Matt Stone, the makers of
South Park, criticize the film
Pearl Harbor as one of Bay's worst films in this romantic
parody. The song opens with "I miss you more than Michael Bay missed the mark when he made
Pearl Harbor" and contains the line "Why does Michael Bay get to keep on making movies?"
In the fifth-season
South Park episode "
Cartmanland,"
Kyle said, "
Cartman gets his own amusement park, and Michael Bay gets to keep making movies. It's true. There is no
God."
Many critics blasted Bay for apparently reusing a scene from his 2003
Bad Boys II in his latest film,
The Island (2005). The sequence in
Bad Boys II involves a freeway chase in which the villains throw cars from a flatbed truck to discourage police pursuit. In The Island the protagonists are forced to throw massive iron tires from a moving truck in order to defend themselves against a mercenary force. In the commentary track for
The Island, Bay claims that all he had done was "improved upon" the [Bad Boys II] scene.
The Island came under fire for its blatant use of
product placement. For example, the
Xbox logo is prominently displayed in a scene involving a virtual fighting simulator. When
Ewan McGregor's character accesses a
search engine on a computer terminal, the
MSN butterfly logo is also clearly featured. Bay defended this criticism on the
DVD commentary by saying that it's not realistic to portray a world without advertising.
*
Official website, with
FAQ and
blog*
Fast Cars, Hot Blondes, Big Budgets, Bigger Explosions, a June 2001
Rolling Stone article
*
Criterion Collection essay on Armageddon, from a
Wesleyan University professor under whom Bay studied
*
What Has Our Society Come To When March Of The Penguins Is The Blockbuster Hit Of The Summer?, an August 2005 article from
The Onion, "written by" Bay
*
Article confirming relationship between Michael Bay and Jaime Bergman
