Michael Bay and James Cameron on Hollywood’s Slow Death: "No One Can Greenlight Anything Anymore"
The state of Hollywood isn’t what it used to be, at least not in the eyes of two of its biggest blockbuster directors. Michael Bay recently revealed that he and James Cameron have been commiserating about the industry’s frustrating new reality: the days of bold, swift decision-making are gone.
"I just had a conference call with Jim Cameron and we were both commiserating about Hollywood," Bay told The Hollywood Reporter. "No one can greenlight anything anymore. It's just so slow. It's a very different business."
That shift is something Bay has felt firsthand. Reflecting on how things used to work, he recalled the rapid-fire way his 1998 disaster movie Armageddon came together.
"During Armageddon, those were the days. We had Jonathan Hensleigh, the writer. We sat down for two or three weeks. We had the NASA guy come into my office. We worked out this 20-minute pitch.
“We go into [former Walt Disney Chairman] Joe Roth's office. This would be my third movie. And Joe, he's like a real old time, cool studio executive. He goes, 'That's going to be my July 4th movie. I want to name it Armageddon.'
“We walk out and we're looking at each other. 'Did he just greenlight that movie?' That doesn't happen now. But that's how it used to happen."
Hearing that from a filmmaker of Bay’s caliber is frustrating, but not exactly shocking. Hollywood’s focus has largely shifted to sequels, remakes, and franchises. Original projects, especially on a studio level, have a harder time getting off the ground.
If you want to see fresh ideas, you’re more likely to find them in the indie space, where filmmakers don’t have to navigate the endless red tape of studio decision-making.
For both Bay and Cameron, directors who built their careers on big, ambitious films, it’s a frustrating contrast from how things used to be. If even they are struggling to push projects forward, it speaks volumes about how risk-averse the industry has become.
Despite these challenges, both filmmakers remain active. Bay is set to premiere his new parkour documentary, We Are Storror, at SXSW, while Cameron is deep into post-production on Avatar 3, which he recently confirmed "will actually be a little bit longer" than Avatar: The Way of Water.
Hollywood just isn’t what it used to be and it’s safe to say it’s not going back to the good ol’ days of greenlighting movie projects just because they sound awesome. Those kinds of executives just don’t exist anymore.