Attack of the Clones

''I went to bed at 8:30 last night,'' yawns Michael Bay. When asked for clarification on whether this was a.m. or p.m., the night-owl director raises his eyebrows in shock. ''At night! I'm tired.''

It's an exhausting business, blowing things up. Bay should know. In his storied career with superproducer Jerry Bruckheimer he has blown up battleships, asteroids, Alcatraz, several Miami neighborhoods, respected indie actor Steve Buscemi, and a fairly sizable swath of the sovereign nation of Cuba. All this destruction has led to a well-deserved reputation as a box office rainmaker and a crass entertainer of teenage boys. And today, on the eve of the release of his new movie The Island, the 40-year-old Los Angeles native finds himself most famous for being two things:

(1) The self-proclaimed youngest director to gross a billion dollars worldwide.
(2) The single most critically reviled man in moviedom.

So one can imagine Bay's surprise when he picked up the phone in February 2004 to find the grand rabbi of Hollywood, Steven Spielberg, on the other line. Not only that, but the legendary director told Bay — Yes, him! Michael Bay! — that he thought he was talented. That he had just read the perfect script for him. That he wanted to produce it. The screenplay arrived on Bay's doorstep that night with a thud, a sprawling 140-page futuristic head trip called The Island.