Michael Bay reveals what it would take for him to direct a superhero movie

For whatever reason, it’s become standard practice for any filmmaker to be gauged about their interest in tackling a comic book movie while on the promotional trail for their latest project, with Michael Bay the latest to offer his two cents on what it would take for him to dive into the world of spandex and superheroes.

On the surface, he’d be a pretty good fit for the genre given his penchant for staging mind-blowing action sequences, not to mention the billions of dollars his filmography has brought in at the box office dating back over a quarter of a century. Then again, his five Transformers films conspired to get progressively worse, so his track record for over-pixelated carnage is hardly the most encouraging.

The upcoming Ambulance was made for a thrifty $40 million, stripped Bay’s signature stylings back to basics, and turned out to be his best effort in years, but the famed orchestrator of in-camera pyrotechnics nonetheless outlined what it would take for him to head back into $200 million territory to take on a superhero blockbuster in an interview with ComicBook.

“It’s not that I’m not interested in Marvel. As Ridley Scott says, the most complicated thing for a director and the most fun thing for a director is to build the world. I’m not the guy to go into Lucas’ Star Wars and do Star Wars 5. That’s not me. I’m not the one to come into Iron Man 7. I’m not the one to do Batman 10. I want to do my own thing. I would love to do a superhero thing but I want to do it on my own terms and create my own world.”

Bay doesn’t want to be a director-for-hire, then, but rather create his own mythology from the ground up. Marvel or DC might not be on the horizon, but perhaps another property could entice him to take the reins were he promised creative autonomy.