Hands down, this is the strangest on-going story I’ve encountered this year … and I’ve watched Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color. While working the tireless press rounds for his latest feature, Pain & Gain, Bay allegedly apologized for his meteor-races-towards-Earth thriller Armageddon, stating that he wishes that he had more time in the editing room on the film, that he lost his visual effects supervisor during post-production, and it might not have turned out the way that he wanted.
Except Bay’s now saying that he didn’t say that, and he’s annoyed that this story spread like wildfire (as juicy movie stories do in today’s cyber age).
Start here with Bay’s original comments, where he speaks to the Miami Herald about Armageddon. Then read this response, which Bay posted in the forums of ShootForTheEdit.com, the “Official Michael Bay Forums.” It’s as awesome as you hope:
One press writer has gone too far in reporting false information. He has printed the bare minimum of my statement, which in effect have twisted my words and meaning. I'm not in the slightest going to apologize for the third movie in my movie career, a film called Armageddon. On the red carpet for Pain & Gain, some reporters asked me what are you apologizing for, and I said what on earth are you talking about?What I clearly said to the reporter is I wish I had more time to edit the film, specifically the third act. He asked me in effect what would you change if you could in your movies if you could go back. I said, I wish we had a few more weeks in the edit room on Armageddon. And still today, Armageddon is still one of the most shown movies on cable TV. And yes, I'm proud of the movie. Enough said.
Fantastic. I love that Bay takes to the forums of his official site to set the record straight. And I adore that we are spending so much time on Bay’s bombastic Bruce Willis starrer … which came out 15 years ago! Plus, as we pointed out in our earlier post, Bay has nothing to apologize for with Armageddon, which earned nearly a half a billion dollars worldwide and is an unquestioned smash hit. But Bay probably wishes we were talking about Gain at the moment, and not rehashing a movie he made back in 1998.
Now, what does Bay think about Bad Boys, because I’ll still argue that the Club Hell sequence in that cop comedy is his zenith.
