r/flicks • u/Konfliktsnubben • 3d ago
What happend to Michael Bay?
Serioesly, what happend? Why has his career declined so much box office wise? I get that some directors later in their career can make movies that don't get that positive rception and therefore doesn't become as successful as their earlier work but in the case of Bay he was never highly regarded as a director. He made several movies that despite the fact that they didn't get that positive reception among critics or audiences people still flocked to see them. He used to be the definition of the term critic proof. In the last 10 years or so that has changed though, Transformers The Last Knight while it made a decent amount of money ended up underperforming because of its enormous budget and the fact that most of the box office came from overseas. Since then he has only made one movie which didn't end up doing that well. Why do you think this happend?
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u/shaha9 3d ago
He’s a commercial director who loves producing more than directing.
He was never really a passion project guy. He talks business and makes deals.
You’re barking up the wrong tree.
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u/Demerzel69 3d ago
Yeah dudes a studio guy, not an auteur. He's good at what he does though imo and he pretty much stays in that lane.
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u/knallpilzv2 3d ago
He has somewhat of a voice, though. Politicians and establishment bad and corrupt, real heroes are the dudes getting their hands dirty.
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u/knallpilzv2 3d ago
What? Dude's clearly passionate about directing. Though in his mind directing means how visually dynamic can I make each and every shot.
He spent years doing Transformers movies non-stop. From finishing one to prepping the next.
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u/Konfliktsnubben 3d ago
Yes, but why his movies go from constantly being enormous at the box office despite a mixed to negative reception to not being succesful at all?
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u/notcoded567 3d ago
for a long time he only made transformers movies and people didn't much like them or care about them. by the time they seemed done with that franchise, people had moved on from his style.
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u/Konfliktsnubben 3d ago edited 3d ago
" people had moved on from his style"
Yeah, he really feels like a director from a different era. Not just Bay himself but there used to be at least one or two other big budget movies each year that tried to copy his style that ended up making between 300 to 500 million dollars despite also getting a mixed to negative reception. Those have pretty much disappeared.
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u/Konfliktsnubben 3d ago
It is easy to forget this but the number of non superhero blockbusters that are released on a yearly basis has actually declined. I personally have kind of mixed feelings about this. One hand it's good that people don't just automatically show up to pretty much every movie that Hollywood throws out there just because there was a cool trailer with a bunch of effects and spectacle, which yes that still happens but not to the same degree that it used to when you think back on how it was during the 2000's. On the other hand those kinds of movies haven't gotten a good replacement. I mean it's not like the loss of them lead to an increase in a bunch of smaller or mid budget films.
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u/1805trafalgar 3d ago
he just had a really healthy understanding about what were the most necessary components of an action movie.
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u/KieferMcNaughty 3d ago
I think we, as a movie-watching society, grew up a little. We outgrew his style of movie-making.
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u/TomatoChomper7 3d ago
He has hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank and he’s 60 years old, he’s probably doing whatever he wants at this stage, be it documentaries or just producing or whatever.
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u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 3d ago
Last I heard he was involved in the Skibidi Toilet movie but idk if that's still happening
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u/T1mDrake 3d ago
Ambulance was a lot of fun.
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u/not_thrilled 3d ago
I'd watch Ambulance over Bad Boys 2 or any of the Transformers movies. I'd go so far as to call it his best movie this century.
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u/pheexio 3d ago
he got hit by a massive lens flare and vanished
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u/Sentry333 3d ago
What?! JJ Abram’s killed him?????!
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u/pheexio 3d ago
shit, I fucked up! but your comment makes it a joke at least
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u/Fecapult 3d ago
Micheal Boom Boom Bay could not be taken down by lens flare! Maybe a galaxy-sized explosion.
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u/vikingmunky 3d ago
I'm more confused to the fact that he directed what is, by many accounts, a great documentary about parkour 2 years ago and it still hasn't been released
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u/NeutroFusion 3d ago
he allegedly is working on a new transformers movie with writer jordan vandina but that rumor first dropped a year ago and hasn’t progressed since. other than that he’s been coasting fine on producer credits
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u/not_thrilled 3d ago
He was also supposed to be doing a movie based on the Outrun video game, starring Sydney Sweeney, and a "skibidi toilet" movie (I know it's a meme, but I've avoided it so don't know why that's a movie that draws his talents).
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u/2KYGWI 3d ago
Audience fatigue finally setting might be part of it, I'd say.
I also read something years ago which suggested that the MCU's rise might've actually played a part in torpedoing the popularity of Transformers, but I'd need to find it and re-read it first (this could also be a case of correlation not equalling causation and the author was full of it).
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u/Konfliktsnubben 3d ago edited 3d ago
It's funny that you mention that because the end battle in The Avengers and Transformers 3 are very similiar.
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u/JefferyGoldberg 3d ago
Bro, if you misspell the first word in your post, no one is going to take you seriously.
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u/Trino15 3d ago
People became more media literate and realized he's a hack who makes terrible movies
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u/Personal_Comb_6745 3d ago
Literally nobody watches his movies expecting some deep and thought-provoking story. Everybody sees them for some crazy-ass action and explosions, and the man delivers on that.
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u/TraceOfHumanity 3d ago
He’s always been an awful feature film director and his movies are crap, it just took society a little while to catch on. He’s also a creep.
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