{"id":463560,"date":"2026-02-07T03:05:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T03:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/463560\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T03:05:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T03:05:08","slug":"michael-bay-sues-for-1-5-million-over-cadillac-f1-super-bowl-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/463560\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Bay Sues for $1.5 Million Over Cadillac F1 Super Bowl Spot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAction film director Michael Bay<\/a> is crying foul over Cadillac\u2019s upcoming F1 Super Bowl commercial, claiming in a new $1.5 million lawsuit that he was drafted as \u201cthe most American director\u201d around to produce the pricey spot but later was cheated when Cadillac allegedly stole his ideas and cut him loose.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe 19-page breach of contract and fraud lawsuit, filed Friday in Los Angeles and obtained by Rolling Stone, claims Dan Towriss, the owner and CEO of the new Cadillac F1 racing team, reached out to Bay personally on Nov. 28, 2025, saying he wanted to hire \u201cthe most American director [he] could find\u201d to conceptualize, produce, and direct the commercial set to introduce a new Formula 1 racing team under the Cadillac brand. Bay, the director of blockbuster hits The Rock, Armageddon, and Pearl Harbor, alleges he put his other projects on hold to accept Towriss\u2019 offer of producing and directing the high-profile but extremely rushed \u00a0launch of the F1 team on the Super Bowl stage.<\/p>\n

\n\tThen midway through the production, after Bay and his team allegedly expended hundreds of hours \u201cworking nearly nonstop, Towriss abruptly decided to \u2018go in a different direction\u2019 and use someone else to complete the project,\u201d the lawsuit states. It claims Towriss and his Cadillac F1 team \u201chave apparently stolen Bay\u2019s ideas and work for the commercial, without paying for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey planned all along to rip him off. They wanted a \u2018Michael Bay\u2019 commercial, in other words, at a bargain-basement price,\u201d the lawsuit alleges. Bay says the purported failure to honor the deal particularly stung because he had a 25-year relationship with Cadillac owner General Motors. Bay says he helped develop the vehicle design for the Bumblebee character in his Transformers franchise, and GM later sold cars by the very same design.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his lawsuit, Bay includes an image of a written proposal allegedly used by Towriss and his ad agency to entice him to the job that said the \u201clegendary project\u201d called for \u201cone of the most legendary storytellers of our generation to help bring it to life.\u201d Bay says he was asked to complete the project on \u201can extreme rush basis,\u201d by Feb. 2, 2026, so they could submit it for approval by the NFL in time for the televised championship Super Bowl LX game airing Sunday, Feb. 8.<\/p>\n

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\n\tBay says he was wary about working with the third-party agency and expressed his reservations to Towriss. \u201cThey steal my ideas. They try to pick my brain and give these ideas to younger cheaper commercial directors,\u201d Bay says he told Towriss. In response, Towriss allegedly told him, \u201cWell, I\u2019m paying for this Super Bowl commercial, so Cadillac and I are in charge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBay says Towriss vaguely mentioned an idea about using a speech by John F. Kennedy in the commercial, and Bay pulled up a clip from Transformers 3, in which he had overlaid a JFK speech about the \u201crace to the moon\u201d with heart-pounding music and visuals of NASA rockets prepping for launch. \u201cTowriss was thrilled,\u201d the lawsuit states.<\/p>\n

\n\tBay claims he also shared a clip from Armageddon, featuring a dry desert landscape. \u201cAgain, Towriss was thrilled,\u201d his lawsuit alleges. Bay says he suggested gold colors, sun flares, dust, and heat ripples, citing The Right Stuff as his inspiration.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter the first major meeting with Towriss, \u201cBay and his team worked tirelessly around the clock to prepare for this production. Bay personally pulled an all-nighter that evening, putting together various ideas for the project,\u201d the lawsuit states. Bay says he later showed clips from his prior films to the agency, including specific editing styles. He claims the agents \u201cloved\u201d his presentation.<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter that, \u201cBay himself pulled a second all-nighter simply to prepare for his follow-up Webex with Towriss the following day,\u201d the lawsuit says. Bay says his team approached the process \u201cextremely seriously\u201d and \u201cunderstood it would cost defendants upwards of $15 million simply to pay for and broadcast this commercial once during the Super Bowl.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tBay claims he was clear with Towriss that he was developing films for Apple, Amazon, Universal, and Paramount Pictures but was willing to put everything on hold for the commercial. He says Towriss replied, \u201cOK, let\u2019s get to work, I will let everyone know,\u201d referring to the agency.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe director says he started hiring staff with the understanding he had a ballpark budget of $2 million for production costs and $1 million for post-production. Bay says his team tracked down the only available F1 car then physically in the U.S., which had been used in the recent film F1, and that they were in the process of shipping it to begin filming on the Mojave Airport runway as early as Dec. 11, 2025. But then, on Dec. 6, a freelance producer allegedly texted that she had some \u201cnot great news\u201d and that the agency had decided to \u201cgo in a different direction\u201d and use someone else to complete the commercial.<\/p>\n

\n\tBay\u2019s lawsuit says the \u201cbait and switch\u201d led Bay to text Towriss directly, asking for an explanation. \u201cI\u2019m not at all happy with how this played out,\u201d Towriss purportedly responded in a text message excerpted in the lawsuit. \u201cI will be looking for a future project to bring you with no agency in the middle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to the complaint, promotional materials related to Cadillac\u2019s F1 Super Bowl commercial were later released online and contain specific elements originally proposed by Bay, including \u201cshimmering\u201d and \u201chighly reflective gold chrome.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cDefendants specifically solicited Bay for this project,\u201d the lawsuit alleges. \u201cWhen plaintiff Bay made his sales pitch to Towriss, he asked Towriss point-blank whether he was being hired.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe new lawsuit includes claims for breach of verbal contract, breach of implied-in-face contract, and fraud. It alleges the defendants agreed to pay Bay\u2019s standard director\u2019s fee and the producer\u2019s fee for Bay\u2019s and his team\u2019s work, which totaled approximately $1.5 million. Bay is now asking for a judgement that includes compensatory damages of at least $1.5 million as well as punitive damages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Action film director Michael Bay is crying foul over Cadillac\u2019s upcoming F1 Super Bowl commercial, claiming in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,7882,19292,817,813,816,42997,85,237683],"class_list":{"0":"post-463560","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-controversy","11":"tag-courts-and-crime","12":"tag-f1","13":"tag-formula-1","14":"tag-formula1","15":"tag-michael-bay","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-superbowl"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}