Michael Bay It needs no introduction at this point. The legend of him precedes him… so much so that it has even become a meme and reference. Just as FromSoftware is synonymous with difficulty in video games, the director is synonymous with explosions in cinema. Transformers Saga, Armageddon, Bad Boys, The Purge and Pearl Harbor, among others.
The big explosions are Michael Bay's fiefdom, even when they are not his they carry the “Michael Bay” brand. We don't have to leave video games to see it: the explosions in Helldivers 2 have made us repeat this comment. Knowing all this, it is not surprising that the director was a little upset when the film James Bond 007: Spectre It took the record for the biggest explosion in film history in 2015.
“James Bond tried to keep the Biggest Explosion in the World. And that's a lie, it's ours,” Bay said in an interview for Empire in 2022. He refers to one of the explosions in the film Pearl Harbor. We are talking about a firecracker that cost 5.5 million dollars and required a month of preparation, 12 camera teams, 700 sticks of dynamite, 610 meters of detonation cord, +18 thousand liters of gasoline and the destruction of 7 real ships.
There was dynamite everywhere, prepared on many ships. And we had to deal with the sun, waiting for the right moment to get enough light because the puffy clouds were moving in… There were 12 cameras. We had helicopters. I think it's only about 30 seconds of film, but they are gigantic explosions.
And here comes the point of the matter: Michael Bay holds the Guinness World Record for most expensive explosion in film history, not the biggest. As much as it may be to the director, the biggest explosion in the history of cinema 007: Spectre still has it. In addition, it also holds the record for the largest number of explosives detonated in a single shot, as indicated by Sensacine in 2023.
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