‘Raising Arizona’: The Coen brothers movie Michael Bay called “instrumental”
Michael Bay is easily one of Hollywood’s most divisive directors. The Rock and the first two Bad Boys movies are held up as some of the finest action films ever made, but he’s also come under serious scrutiny over the years for his overreliance on big explosions and lack of credible characters.
Regardless of how some may feel about him, Michael Bay is an undeniable box-office success. His films have grossed over $7 billion, placing him comfortably within the top ten highest-earning filmmakers of all time. It’s always fascinating to explore the mind of an artist who has achieved such success, especially when it comes to their influences. Interestingly, one iconic comedy played a significant role in shaping Bay’s career.
Durnig an interview with Chud to promote the first Transformers movie, the director was asked who he was a fan of. After first mentioning Stanley Kubrick, he revealed his love for Joel and Ethan Coen with one particular film in mind. “Raising Arizona was such an instrumental film in how I’ve done some of my commercials,” said Bay, who made ads for Coca-Cola and the ‘Got Milk?’ campaign before moving into features. He went on to praise the film for its comic timing before stating that
Raising Arizona, which stars Nicholas Cage and Holly Hunter as an unhinged couple who kidnap the baby of a wealthy businessman, was the Coen brothers’ second film. As Bay said, it wasn’t beloved at the time of its release but has since gone on to become a firm favourite among moviegoers. Fellow directors Spike Lee and Edgar Wright are also both fans, with the latter describing it as his favourite ever film.
There are some obvious links between the movie and Bay’s own work, most notably that Cage starred in The Rock, which established the young director as a major new force. John Goodman, who also appears in the film, played a role in Transformers: The Last Knight. However, the zanier aspects of Raising Arizona may also have influenced Bay’s smash-mouth style, as both border on the unrealistic in their own ways.
The Armageddon director also cited Steven Spielberg as an early idol. “When I was young, as you’ve probably heard, I worked at Lucasfilm,” he presumptively stated. “When I was fifteen, I was a librarian, and I filed Raiders of the Lost Ark storyboards, and that’s how I got into the business.” Perhaps his love for the Indiana Jones series led him to cast Sean Connery (who played Indy Sr. in The Last Crusade) alongside Cage in The Rock.
Elsewhere in the interview, Bay revealed that filmmaking wasn’t his first love. “When I was young, I wanted to be a veterinarian,” he said before divulging that he also tried his hand at magic. “I realised there was no money in being a magician, so I gave it up and liquidated all my tricks to another competing group [of twelve-year-olds].” Hopefully those kids went on to do great things with that knowledge.
Whilst he’s served as a producer on a number of major recent films, including The Forever Purge, A Quiet Place: Day One, and the upcoming Transformers One, Bay hasn’t helmed a production since 2022’s Ambulance. In 2023, he was charged with allegedly killing a pigeon on the set of 6 Underground, something he vehemently denies. There’s never a dull moment in his life, is there?
