Your favorite Michael Bay film

[LordTheNightKnight]

Onyxmeth said:

LordTheNightKnight said:

Onyxmeth said:

LordTheNightKnight said:
I wonder why people can't just say they don't like his movies based on their own tastes. They have to try to bash the guy. If you just don't like his work, it's just your opinion, and stop acting as though you can make people share it.

Incidentally, the movie I like least of his is Pearl Harbor, but that wasn't that much his fault. The studio wanted to make it the next Titanic, for one thing. And on those grounds I am offended Transformers 2 has more critical hate. That movie didn't try to turn a tragic event into a cash cow (note Titanic was not anticipated to be such a hit when it was made).

The other movies I (mostly) like, so I can't put up a favorite.

@the bolded:

When you speak of Titanic not being anticipated to be such a hit, are you speaking of the same Titanic that cost 200 million to make and is still one of the most expensive single films to create in history, even 12 years later and had no equal in budget for 6 whole years and with inflation has the fourth highest budget ever for a film? That Titanic?

Why are you mentioning budget, when I clearly meant how much money it made? Again, how would any of them know the film would make three times its budget back? They way they worked the money made it clear they were hoping to just break even. Pearl Harbor was a crass attempt to duplicate what they thought was the formula that Titanic usd.

I'm mentioning budget because most studios don't put that much money into a film to break even. They usually do it hoping for it to sell gangbusters. I just don't agree that when Fox put down the money for this, they didn't anticpate a cash cow, otherwise they probably wouldn't have put down so damn much in the first place.(1)

Regarding Pearl Harbor being a poor man's attempt at Titanic though, year I pretty much agree there. That stems from them thinking they could get Academy Award level performances out of a Ben Affleck and Michael Bay duo though,(2) which is hilarious a situation as any. On the other hand, the best reports peg it at $130 million for a production budget which is much less than Titanic had four years earlier, and it still grossed $450 million, which is nothing to sneeze at. It doesn't seem they were willing to throw the studio behind Pearl Harbor the same as Fox threw their support behind Titanic.

1. You're assuming Fox put down all the money for it. They didn't.

2. Not Oscar winning. In terms of recreating the box office formula. A lot of people assumed the love story was shoehorned into Titanic, when it was about having the breadth of the ship from the experience of those two, while not using loads of B an C plots among different groups, that previous such films did. But since it was believed the love story sold the film, this had one shoehorned in.