Although Transformers ranks among Michael Bay's renowned works, the director was not always keen on creating the film franchise - here's what convinced him to helm the live-action movies. With box office numbers as over-whelming as Michael Bay's action scenes, the first Transformers live-action movie was released in 2007 and has received five blockbuster sequels and a prequel that have earned billions of dollars combined at the global box office. A sixth movie, titled Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, is scheduled for 2023, and owing to the franchise's popularity, it will likely garner similar box office returns as its predecessors.
With so many live-action films under the Transformers brand, Michael Bay's take on the Hasbro toy adaptation may not have the best critical ratings. However, since the Bad Boys director pioneered all the technical specs and narrative elements required to effectively traverse the toys to the big screen, he deserves credit for paving the way for the movie franchise. Affirming this, The Making Of "TRANSFORMERS" Behind The Scenes shows all the effort that went into creating the box office success of the first Transformers movies. Surprisingly, the BTS documentary also reveals that Michael Bay was initially iffy about making Transformers.
What Convinced Michael Bay To Make A Transformers Movie?
In The Making Of "TRANSFORMERS" Behind The Scenes, Michael Bay reveals that when Steven Spielberg approached him for Transformers, his first reaction was to dismiss it as "a toy movie" that he would not want to do. However, after the Pain and Gain director visited Rhode Island's Hasbro headquarters, he realized there is more to the toys than meets the eye. As a result, Bay learned that along with having the ability to transform into vehicles, the robots in Transformers have scintillating backstories, conflicts, and even complex feelings. With a newfound perspective on Transformers, Michael Bay was eventually convinced and could envision big-screen ideas for the franchise.
Michael Bay Not Wanting To Make Transformers Was Good For It (In The End)
The fact that it took a while for Michael Bay to buy the idea of adapting Transformers to the big screen shows that he and his team went the extra mile to understand the existing lore around the franchise's central robots and humans. This is also evident in the movie, where the story unfolds from the perspective of many different characters. Along with connecting Bumblebee's narrative with Sam Witwicky's coming-of-age hijinks, Transformers brings a human element to its Cybertronian races by highlighting the ancient struggles and conflicts the Autobots and Decepticons have endured.
Michael Bay also took Transformers' narrative beyond Witwicky's backyard and created an international threat out of its central Cyberton conflict, which sells the movie to a wider audience. To make its action sequences as believable as possible, the director also used as little CGI as possible and filmed all of them in the real world. While at it, he also stayed true to the wonder and spectacle of Transformers' source material.
As Michael Bay reveals in The Making Of "TRANSFORMERS" Behind The Scenes, he realized early on that Transformers cannot be treated as another Herbie movie, and as a result, replaced Bumblebee's original Volkswagen Bug design with a Camaro. If he had stuck to his initial doubts surrounding Transformers' live-action potential, he likely would not have made so many creative decisions to make it work. Therefore, it is good that Michael Bay took time to understand why Steven Spielberg approached him and only then overturned his decision to not make Transformers.
