Michael Bay Thought Transformers Was Terrible During Test Screenings

Director Michael Bay was worried Transformers was terrible during the film’s first test screening. Bay is one of the most prolific and successful action directors in Hollywood, having spent the 90s dominating the scene with big-budget spectacles like Bad Boys, The Rock, and Armageddon. His latest movie, Ambulance, starring Jake Gyllenhall, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Eiza Gonzalez, opens in theaters on April 8, 2022.

Ambulance, along with the previously released Six Underground for Netflix, marks a return to Bay, who spent a decade in the Transformers franchise, directing the first five films from 2007 to 2017. He only directed two films in that decade outside the franchise at that time, 2013’s Pain and Gain and 2016’s 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. The Transformers films were some of the biggest globally, with Revenges of the Fallen and Age of Extinction grossing over $1 billion worldwide. Despite solid box office returns for most of the series run, all five films directed by Michael Bay were never received well by critics, and some fans of the franchise and the director eventually left the franchise.

In an interview with Screen Rant regarding his newest film, Ambulance, Bay breaks down the complex process during the test screening phase of Transformers. He recalls how nervous he was when they tested Transformers in front of audiences, with one being a family crowd and another comprised primarily of adults. When he asked one of the adults if they liked it, and they gave an unenthusiastic response, Bay was worried the film was terrible. However, once both screenings were done, the film tested positively with the audience. Bay said:

“I’m telling you, here’s a little trick. When directors go pre-screen their movies, we’re testing them, you see what [audiences] feel and whatnot, and I’ve got the sound thing there, you want to throw up. Every director wants to throw up the first time a big audience is looking at that thing. And you’ll see people walking down slowly in the test, and you want to grab them, “No, no, no. Hang on. There’s a big scene. If you miss this scene, you’re going to miss the whole thing.” So it’s intense, like Transformers…So two houses, 400 people in each house, starting 15 minutes difference or something like that. I’m now watching it with a whole bunch of families and kids, and I’m like, “Okay, dumb robot movie. Oh my God. It’s just a kids’ movie. Oh, man. Oh, what did I do?” It gets a huge score, and it was unfinished. Then I go to the next theater, and I’ve got the sound thing and there’s an empty seat and there’s a guy, whatever. This is more of the adult kind of room, and I look to the guy and I [ask], “Do you like this movie?” And he goes, “[meh hand motion].” And I’m like, “Oh, this is terrible. I just made a terrible movie.” Whatever. Huge matching score, like a 94. That’s a spectacular movie score.”

Summer 2007 was filled with highly anticipated films from Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and The Simpsons Movie, yet somehow even against all those proven franchises with massive franchises, Transformers emerged as one of the most anticipated movies that year. Both the film’s cryptic teaser and first trailer raised excitement for audiences, and the movie broke records in its opening weekend, including the highest per-screen and per-theater gross in 2007 as well as breaking Spider-Man 2 record for biggest Fourth of July opening and its first week of release grossed $155.4 million before ending its worldwide total with $709 million.

Ambulance now sees Bay return to the style of his early days, making a mid-budget film feel like a massive spectacle. Meanwhile, Transformers has reinvented itself, with Bumblebee being a soft reboot of the franchise that received the best reviews of the series, and an upcoming follow-up film to Bumblebee titled Transformers: Rise of the Beast is set for release on June 9, 2023, and an animated prequel film set for release on July 19, 2024. Now fifteen years since the original Transformers film, the franchise is still going and has a lot of life left.

Source: Screen Rant

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Richard Fink
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Richard Fink is a news writer for Screen Rant. He graduated from Arizona State University in 2016 with a degree in Film and Media Production. He loves the finer things in life, like cold Diet Coke on a hot summer day. Richard is a fan of all things Star Wars, Marvel, DC, and Film History.

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