Michael Bay retracts Armageddon apology

Michael Bay has said that he isn't sorry about 'Armageddon' after all.

The 'Transformers' director apologised for what he saw as deficiencies in his 1998 action flick, blaming the studio for taking it away from him before it was finished.

[Related story: Michael Bay says sorry for Armageddon]

Now he's said that his remarks were taken out of context by the reporter who quoted him, and has headed to his official forum Shoot For The Edit to clarify things.

“One press writer has gone too far in reporting false information. He has printed the bare minimum of my statement which in effect have twisted my words and meaning. I'm not in the slightest going to apologize for the third movie in my movie career, a film called 'Armageddon'. On the red carpet for [his new film] 'Pain & Gain' some reporters asked me what are you apologizing for, and I said what on earth are you talking about?

“What I clearly said to the reporter, is I wish I had more time to edit the film, specifically the the third act. He asked me in effect what would you change if you could in your movies if you could go back. I said, I wish we had a few more weeks in the edit room on Armageddon. And still today Armageddon, is still one of the most shown movies on cable TV. And yes, I'm proud of the movie. Enough said.”

The original quote from Bay said: “I will apologize for 'Armageddon,' because we had to do the whole movie in 16 weeks. It was a massive undertaking. That was not fair to the movie. I would redo the entire third act if I could.

“But the studio literally took the movie away from us. It was terrible. My visual effects supervisor had a nervous breakdown, so I had to be in charge of that. I called James Cameron and asked ‘What do you do when you’re doing all the effects yourself?’ But the movie did fine.”

Bay is currently doing the press rounds promoting his new film 'Pain & Gain', starring Dwayne Johnson and Mark Wahlberg.

It's out in the UK on August 28.