HIGH HONOUR FOR A HIGH EARNER
Michael Bay sank his hands and feet into the forecourt of Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theatre this week as he was honoured for a money-spinning movie career that has netted almost US$6 billion (208.6 billion baht).
The 52-year-old Los Angeles native is known for directing some of history’s biggest effectsladen blockbusters, from Bad Boys (1995),
Armageddon (1998) and Pearl Harbor (2001) to the Transformers franchise.
“It brings back your childhood, because I remember as a kid I came here. And this is where I went to the movies with my parents, this was the place where I saw Raiders Of The
Lost Ark, when I decided I want to become a director,” he said.
Bay, who now calls Miami home, worked as an i ntern f or George Lucas’s special effects company, Industrial Light and Magic, before kick-starting his directing career with commercials and music videos for the likes of Tina Turner, Lionel Richie and Meat Loaf.
His first feature film — Bad Boys, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence — marked the beginning of a string of collaborations between Bay and veteran producer Jerry Bruckheimer.
“It’s bizarre as a kid to think this was always untouchable to me, you know?” he said of being honoured by Hollywood.
“You don’t ever think that’s possible, so it’s kind of a bizarre thing having your hands printed here.”
Known for high-octane action, Bay’s movies have made US$5.8 billion, allowing him to indulge a passion for aviation and motoring, according to Rolling Stone magazine, snapping up a $50 million Gulfstream jet and a fleet of luxury and sports cars.
Yet his commercial success has not protected him from the barbs of critics that accompany each new release, and he has in the past been accused of “pummelling audiences into submission” rather than entertaining them.
Mark Kermode, the British film critic who came up with the above phrase, wrote in a onestar review of Transformers: Age Of Extinction in 2014 that it had all the director’s hallmarks, from its ludicrous plot and incoherent action to “endless leering shots of the leading lady’s butt”.
Bay, who directed all five instalments of the smash-hit Transformers franchise about huge robots that turn into cars and hit each other, said he never reads his critics.
“They can say whatever they want. It’s all about the fans. I think it’s a real epic movie,” Bay said at a preview for Age Of Extinction in Miami. Bay’s fifth instalment, Transformers: The Last
Knight, is scheduled for release on June 21, and an untitled sixth movie is due 12 months later, although a director has not been announced.