Hollywood Goes to Benghazi: The Making of ‘13 Hours’ Action director Michael Bay discusses his new film about the 2012 Benghazi attacks By Don Steinberg
http://www.wsj.com/articles/michael-bays-13-hours-steers-clear-of-politics-1452097682
In a climate where just saying “Benghazi” can hint at a political agenda, Michael Bay’s new film “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” seems headed into an ideological skirmish that the director swears he wants no part of.
The movie “doesn’t get political at all,” says Mr. Bay, who directed the “Transformers” movies and “Pearl Harbor.” “We show you what happened on the ground. It was written with the men who were there.”
The drama, which opens Jan. 15, recreates the chaotic Sept. 11, 2012, attack on an American diplomatic compound and a CIA station in Benghazi, Libya. Militants killed four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. Inquiries into what went wrong have dogged Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, who as the Secretary of State at the time oversaw the diplomatic corps.
The movie isn’t about the aftermath, Mr. Bay says. The 50-year-old director wanted to make a tense film about American military heroes who rose to the challenge of a deadly sneak attack—something he has done before on a bigger budget. “Pearl Harbor” cost around $140 million in 2001 and made the Guinness Book of World Records for its massive explosions.
ENLARGE “It took 3½ months to set up one explosion, seven hundred events going off on seven ships, 20 planes in the air. The good old days!” he says.
“13 Hours” came in just under $50 million.
“I didn’t want all the expensive toys,” Mr. Bay says. “It was about shooting it very raw, over the shoulder of guys to make it feel like you are really there. Everything that I have learned from many, many soldiers is the confusion of warfare and how everything goes wrong. You kind of feel that in the movie.”
Of course there’s also a commercial aim, that “13 Hours” might follow the path of another January release about modern warfare, “American Sniper.” Made for about $40 million, “Sniper” opened widely last January and reached $350 million in domestic box office, becoming the highest-grossing war movie of all time and the biggest-grossing January movie ever.
“That was a phenomenal success,” Mr. Bay says, but he stops short of hoping aloud for similar results. “Never tempt the movie gods.” “Sniper” had the advantage of Bradley Cooper in its lead role; the biggest star in “13 Hours” is John Krasinski of “The Office” and “Promised Land.”
January seems to be when studios roll out intimate movies about modern war. Before “Sniper,” there was “Lone Survivor,” starring Mark Wahlberg as Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, which went into wide release in January 2014. “Zero Dark Thirty,” about the killing of Osama bin Laden, went into wide release in January 2013.
The timing is more than a coincidence. “It’s definitely [intentional] programming,” says Erwin Stoff, one of the producers of “13 Hours.”
Partly it’s just a hot streak. “An audience starts to get accustomed to having particular themes dealt with at certain times of the year,” Mr. Stoff says. In addition, January is a month when films without gargantuan budgets can get attention.
Unlike “Transformers”-style blockbusters and traditional war movies, these films about modern American soldiers often need to have modest budgets because they don’t make most of their money overseas. “Pearl Harbor,” “Saving Private Ryan” and last year’s “Fury,” featuring large-scale World War II campaigns, all were bigger draws overseas than at home. However, “Sniper,” “Lone Survivor,” “Act of Valor,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Jarhead,” and “Blackhawk Down” earned more at the box office domestically. Whether that reflects an inherent American-ness to these films or simply less bombastic action isn’t clear. In a sense, modern warfare movies differ from traditional ones just as war today differs from the past.
“We’re not seeing entire naval fleets moving into areas like Midway or battling German U-boats or Japanese aircraft carriers. I think those days are long gone,” says Peter Berg, who directed “Lone Survivor” and has a series about modern soldiers, “Live to Tell,” debuting January 10 on the History Channel.
The surprise success of “Sniper” helped make “13 Hours” happen. In 2013, five of the Americans who fought in the Benghazi attack as security contractors for the Central Intelligence Agency decided their firsthand account might help people see beyond the political talking points. “Other people were telling our story,” says Mark Geist, one of the security contractors, who has been helping publicize the movie.
The contract soldiers consulted with a lawyer to determine what they were permitted to reveal. They sold the book and film rights to Mr. Stoff’s agency, 3 Arts Entertainment, and told their stories to journalist Mitchell Zuckoff for his 2014 book “13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi.” Movie studios weren’t totally sold until “Sniper” soared, says Mr. Bay, who started production on the film for Paramount last spring. On location in Malta, his crew built a replica of the Benghazi diplomatic compound.
The movie does depict a CIA base chief telling the security team to “stand down,” delaying their defense of the diplomats. When that appeared in the book, it sparked headlines. A congressional committee concluded there wasn’t a stand-down order, but possibly tactical disagreements amid the chaos may have slowed the CIA response. “This is what happened, like it or not,” says Mr. Geist, a 12-year U.S. Marine who was injured by an explosion in the Benghazi attack.
Given the political controversy—and Mr. Bay’s specialty in sensational action—Mr. Geist says he was apprehensive about how Hollywood would handle the story. “I told Michael, if you do anything that disrespects the four Americans that died, I will beat the s— out of you. I don’t care who you are,” he says, not entirely joking. The film has explosions, none over the top. Mr. Geist jokes that he tested the director’s earnestness by challenging Mr. Bay to include another unofficial hallmark of his films: a leering shot of a woman’s backside.
“He always has a girl’s butt, in every “Transformers,” “Pearl Harbor,” “The Rock,” Mr. Geist says. He facetiously mentioned a scene where such a shot might work. But Mr. Bay didn’t take the bait. “He’s like, ‘No, we’re not gonna do it’,” Mr. Geist says. “That showed me how serious he was about this movie. But he thought about it.”
Mr. Bay doesn’t remember thinking about it. “No, he was just—these guys are jokesters,” the director says. “That’s their protection mechanism.”
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