Michael Bay He has just released his brand new movie ‘Ambulance’, which in addition to being one of his best works, has revolutionized the way action movies are shot with its amazing use of FPV drones. But if we have something to thank for the return of the teacher, who doesn’t exactly mince words, it is the number of pearls you are dropping during the promotional campaign of the film.
Whatcha gonna do?
During an interview with the media Entertainment Weekly, the king of Bayhem recalled his experience debuting in the feature film with the still fantastic today ‘Two rebel policemen’. This was not too nice, since the Californian ran into a Sony that had no faith in productionmainly, for having a cast headed by black actors.
“Sony didn’t believe in the movie, because two black actors don’t sell overseas. They didn’t have faith in it. I was watching James Cameron’s ‘True Lies,’ like, ‘Oh my god, this guy has a lot of money, I just have 9 million.’ And they literally stopped me. They turned off the faucet. That’s how disrespectful they were on this movie. Luckily, I had 500 days of on-set experience shooting videos, commercials, and working with some of the world’s most famous athletes, and That’s how you really learn to deal with assholes.”
But, as they say, hunger sharpens ingenuity, and in the midst of a bumpy shoot full of pitfalls, shaped one of the most iconic shots of his filmographyconverted into a leitmotiv and an authorial seal: the 360 pivoting on the actors.
“I said, ‘Where’s the circular trolley? Bring the circular trolley.’ And we did this circular movement where they get up and it became a very famous shot. People try to imitate it, but it was a momentous moment.”
The case of Michael Bay taking on a major studio due to the race of its protagonists is not unique. Without going further, Roland Emmerich had to battle with Fox to get Will Smith on his ‘Independence Day’, even threatening to go to Universal if they didn’t accept the actor. This is how he told The Hollywood Reporter:
“‘Two Bad Cops’ literally changed the game for black actors. The studio said, ‘No, we don’t like Will Smith, it’s untested, it doesn’t work in international markets.’
Dean Devlinthe film’s producer, added the following to Emmerich’s words.
“They said, ‘Get a black guy in this role and you’ll kill the foreign box office.’ Our stance was, ‘Well, the movie is about aliens from space. It’s going to do well outside.’ It was a big war, Roland fought for Smith And in the end we won.”