Michael Bay

Michael Bay: biography

American director and producer Michael Bay has a great experience and incredible talent as evidenced by the box office results of his films. Michael's most famous movies are the Transformers film series, Armageddon, Bad Boys, and Pearl Harbor. Besides, the director collaborates with the music company that produces music videos for songs of American stars.

Childhood and youth

Bay was born in Los Angeles, California, in February 1965. For some unknown reason, immediately after birth, the biological mother abandoned the healthy baby. But Michael was very lucky. He was not brought up in an orphanage, the baby was immediately adopted by the American family, in which he spent his childhood.

Like other foster children, having already matured and learned the truth about his birth, the young man wanted to get acquainted with his biological parents. It was not difficult to find the mother. According to the director, the woman said that his father might have been world-famous director John Frankenheimer.

This news inspired the young man, and he began to seek meetings with John. Soon they met, and the young man told the alleged father this story, and the man did not rule out such a fact and offered to do a DNA test. The results were negative; Bay was very upset and even believed for a while that the test was wrong. He thought that he looked like the famous film director.

The adoptive parents did their best so that Michael felt comfortable, and therefore, he was a sociable child. He studied at the Crossroads School, where he had many friends with whom the boy loved to shoot short films with his camera. Bay's first job was also related to the cinema. He was an intern at Lucasfilm, and at the same time was mesmerized by the actors and directors’ work. So, he had the irresistible desire to become a film director in the future.

After graduating from high school, Michael entered Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and continued his studies at Wesleyan University. After graduating from the university, the young man immediately began working in his degree field.

Movies

Michael directed the first video a week after applying for work. In his youth, he was active and wanted to release all his energy, implementing ideas, so Bay immediately began to shoot commercials and music videos for Propaganda Films. Before creating the first film, Bay worked with major brands such as Reebok, Nike, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser. He participated in the filming of commercials for Richard Marx, Donny Osmond, and Tina Turner.

Soon, the director was bored with this activity, and then he decided to change a job. So, the filmography of the young man included the first full-length movie. It is the 1995 action movie Bad Boys, starring Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Tea Leoni, and other actors. The film made the director world-famous and became a springboard for a future career, which he took advantage of.

One year after the debut, he made another action movie The Rock. Then he had to work with such stars as Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage, and Ed Harris. This film grossed more than $300 million. Two years later, in 1998, he released the fantasy movie Armageddon.

Those who followed Bay's career noticed that each new project shot by Michael had more and more special effects. This topic was even mocked in one of the episodes of the animated film South Park, showing the exaggerated image of Bay, who was parodied for his inability to fill movies with a thought-provoking plot, except for special effects.

Over time, the man began shooting only high-budget action movies. Probably, it happened after the release of Armageddon, for which Bay received the Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Director and Worst Picture. However, at the end of 1998, this movie became the highest-grossing film of the year.

Then the man worked on the movie Pearl Harbor and Bad Boys II, the horror films The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Amityville Horror. In 2005, he shot the fantasy action movie The Island, starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson.

No less successful projects were five installments of the Transformers fantasy film series, based on the cartoon of the same name. The first part was released in 2007 and grossed $709 million worldwide. This unprecedented success inspired producers and directors to continue filming the next installments of the film. In 2009, the movie Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen premiered.

Megan Fox played the leading female role in the first two parts, and therefore viewers were surprised to see English supermodel Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in the third part of Transformers. As it turned out later, Fox was fired after she had said in an interview that Michael behaved like Adolf Hitler, made the woman gain weight and get the necessary tan.

However, the director was not offended by the words of the actress and said that Steven Spielberg demanded Megan be fired. After that, in 2014 and 2017, two more installments of the Transformers film series were released.

Later, Michael created a lot of films. The most prominent works are A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), The Purge: Election Year (2016), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and others. Bay's latest exciting projects are the TV series Jack Ryan and the film Bumblebee.

Personal life

As for Michael's relationship with women, it should be said that the director prefers not to tell about his personal life. Fans do not know whether he has a wife and children or not. According to some reports, in 1999, the man dated actress and model Jaime Bergman, and later English porn stars Taylor Wayne and Rebecca Bardoux.

Having accumulated a large fortune, Bay purchased two mansions, one of them is located in the man’s hometown, Los Angeles, and the other in Miami. He has mastiffs Grace and Bonecrusher. The photos of dogs sometimes appear on the director's Instagram page.

Michael Bay now

Michael is continuing the activity he has chosen. The man makes movies and TV shows. In 2019, Bay's action movie Six Underground was released.

Ryan Reynolds, Dave Franco, Adria Arjona, and Corey Hawkins played the leading roles. Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick wrote the script for the film, and Michael produced the movie with Ryan Reynolds, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, etc.

Michael Bay has a net worth of $430 million.

Filmography

• 1995 – Bad Boys
• 1996 – The Rock
• 1998 – Armageddon
• 2003 – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
• 2007 – Transformers
• 2009 – Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
• 2013 – The Purge
• 2016 – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows
• 2017 – Transformers: The Last Knight
• 2018 – Bumblebee
• 2019 – Six Underground