Did you hear? Shit almost got real between two directors with fingers in the Giant Robot genre! Alas, Bay and Del Toro have squashed their beef before it even really began.
Shit has not gotten real.
It all started when Bay alluded to some “rip-off” robot movies at CinemaCon and THR ran with this as an opportunity to question Guillermo Del Toro about his Pacific Rim, and if he felt slighted by Bay’s comments. Admittedly, Guillermo did get a little (delightfully) aggro with his response…
“We are far, far, far away from that in a very willing fashion. For good or bad, this is my movie. This is my universe and my creation, and I do not create through comparison… The fights don’t occur in well-lit, supercool, car commercial-looking environments. They occur in the middle of a raging sea storm or in a savage snowstorm. They happen in a universe that is incredibly saturated.”
It’s noted as well that the bots of Pacific Rim are massive, 25-story machines that dwarf the ‘formers, and could defeat “any robot in the history of mankind in a toe-to-toe showdown.” I think there are a few Evangelion units that might disagree, but the point is fair. Naturally Del Toro also took it back to an old school literary tribute and gave the credit to Frankenstein for preceding any story about artificial life.
It was shortly after the THR piece that Michael Bay took to his own website to clear a few things up…
Well today, Hollywood Reporter stated that I was in a feud with Guillermo del Toro and his Pacific Rim. Absolutely to the contrary.
I was talking about another movie, at another studio that will remain nameless, while I spoke at CinemaCon in Vegas this Monday.
I love how reporters put false words in people’s mouths without doing their proper research. Well ’cause of that sloppy reporting, I thought Guillermo was mad at me, and he thought I was mad at him. We both exchanged calls today and realized nobody was mad at anybody except we were both mad at that reporter!
I’m pleased this wasn’t spun into something stupid and nasty- I like Bay and I like Del Toro. No reason to create the false need to “choose sides” in some silly director feud. Bay was most likely alluding to, say, Battleship, which is about as clear-cut and shameless a rip off of Transformers as is possible, and yeah, it’s fucking garbage.
So a big “fuck you” to tabloid-style movie journalism, and hooray for robots!