MICHAEL BAY (Director) is helming his fifth Jerry Bruckheimer production with Bad Boys II. His debut feature, the original Bad Boys, starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, wowed audiences and critics alike grossing more than $160 million worldwide, making it Columbia Pictures top grossing film of 1995. The film has become a paragon of the stylish action comedy.
Bay’s second film was the big-budget action film The Rock starring Academy Award®-winning actors Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage and four-time nominee Ed Harris. The film became a major summer blockbuster of 1996 and won people over with its dazzling mix of visual excitement, high-wire suspense and compelling performances. The Rock brought in over $325 million worldwide, more than doubling the breakout success of Bay’s debut.
Bay re-teamed with Bruckheimer to make Armageddon, a story conceived with writer Jonathan Hensleigh. Starring Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thornton, Liv Tyler and Will Patton, Armageddon marked another major global success, taking in more than $550 million, making Bay one of the youngest directors to reach the $1 billion mark.
Bay next directed and produced, with Bruckheimer, the historical epic Pearl Harbor starring Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale, Jon Voight and Alec Baldwin. A sweeping saga of love and war, Pearl Harbor was a hit with young audiences and World War II veterans alike. It grossed over $450 million and is one of the top-selling DVDs of all time.
Bay is a product of the influential film program at Wesleyan University. He went on to study at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design. After graduating, Bay began making music videos. He drew accolades for directing Donny Osmond’s musical comeback and was soon recruited by Propaganda Films, where he directed award-winning videos for such acts as Aerosmith, Tina Turner, Meat Loaf and the Divinyls.
Bay’s first television ad for the American Red Cross won the prestigious Clio Award. He went on to direct some of the most widely seen and remembered ads in TV history, including spots for Nike, Budweiser, Levi’s, Bugle Boy, Coca Cola, Isuzu, Miller and Mercedes. His best recognized campaign, ‘Got Milk?,’ is one of the most lauded and imitated series in advertising history. Bay won a Grand Prix Clio for Commercial of the Year for the ‘Got Milk?/Aaron Burr’ ad -- dubbed one of the top ten commercials of all time by USA Today and the History Channel. It also garnered the Museum of Modern Art Award for Best Campaign of the Year. By the age of 26 Bay had won every major directing prize bestowed by the advertising industry including the Gold and Silver Lion at Cannes.
Bay recently established his Platinum Dunes production banner, designed to create lower-budget film fare with wide appeal. The first film under the Platinum Dunes shingle is a re-imagining of the cult hit horror film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which Bay is producing.
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