Michael Bay shares his thoughts on the Guinness World Record-breaking explosion from the James Bond film Spectre. The often controversial director got his start in music videos during the 1990s and caught the attention of producers like Jerry Bruckheimer, who selected him for his first feature-length film, the buddy cop classic Bad Boys. Bay followed that up with the action/thriller The Rock and the disaster film Armageddon, riding this success into the Transformers franchise, directing five installments before bowing out after 2017's The Last Knight.
Recently, Bay has mostly focused on making one-off action thrillers and comedies like Pain & Gain, 13 Hours, and 6 Underground. He appears to be sticking to that trend for his new film Ambulance, which just aired a Super Bowl trailer ahead of its theatrical release on April 8. The high-octane thriller follows Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen as two adoptive siblings whose attempted bank robbery goes wrong and results in a critically wounded LAPD officer. The two steal an ambulance and attempt to make their getaway with the cop and an EMT as their hostages. Ambulance also stars Eiza González and Garret Dillahunt.
Bay has been making the rounds promoting his new film and in an interview with Empire Magazine, the director spilled his secrets on creating epic movie explosions. He is particularly fond of the attack sequence in Pearl Harbor, which required extensive planning and preparation. Though Bay wasn't too pleased when he was informed that the destruction of Blofeld’s base in Spectre is the current Guinness World Record for biggest movie explosion: "James Bond tried to take the largest explosion in the world. Bullsh*t. Ours is," Bay said.
By "ours," Bay is referring to his 2001 World War II film, which was released more than a decade before Spectre and featured a 40-minute long re-enactment of the Japanese bombing of the titular United States naval base in Honolulu. While Bay believes his film features an explosion that warrants the world record over the Bond movie, that certainly isn't enough for Guinness. According to the world record book, Spectre used the equivalent of 136 kilograms of TNT to blow up Blofeld's secret base during the movie's climax.
Despite not holding the world record, Bay has garnered a reputation for his movie explosions over the years, some dubbing him the "master of mayhem" or "master of combustion." For many, the director's obsession with explosions exemplifies a large part of what's wrong with blockbuster movies nowadays, though his success and influence is undeniable, currently ranked as the fourth highest-grossing director of all time. Audiences have typically turned out to see Michael Bay's movies, so it will be interesting to see how Ambulance fares in a few months. If nothing else, it will surely feature a few decent explosions.
Source: Empire
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