After working together for years on the “Transformers” franchise, director Michael Bay is lining up a non-fiction military film at Universal Pictures focused on the pilot rescue mission that took place during Trump’s unprovoked Iran War as part of “Operation Epic Fury,” an unpopular and unconstitutional ongoing operation that has been trying to avoid congressional approval while requesting $1.5 trillion from taxpayers for increased defense spending (part of Trump blowing up the U.S. deficent with wild spending that is increasingly looking like blanket looting of the U.S. Treasury).
It was news that came from Deadline, who add the untitled project is said to “chronicle the extraordinary heroism of the two U.S. warfighters rescued after their F-15E Strike Eagle was downed in Iran” back in April 2026. Also, it will be based on an upcoming book that was penned by Mitchell Zuckoff, releasing in 2027 by publisher HarperCollins.
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Bay making a film amplifying the “good side” of the Trump administration’s ongoing (potentially illegal as war crimes are being committed) Iran War isn’t all that shocking after the his pro-military “Transformers” films, the cheesy WWII flick “Pearl Harbor,” and the director previously made “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” that focused on special forces team asigned to a C.I.A. operation in Libya that attempted to evacuate ambassador Chris Stevens. His death (alongside three others) and the insufficient security measures became a massive scandal at the time, but now feels like a blip in the wake of daily/weekly scandals from the current U.S. government getting people killed by their actions and inactions regularly, the embrace of the January 6th insurrectionists being a standout.
The rescue story felt, from the outside, increasingly like a possible distraction to a slew of negative coverage after the U.S. military bombed a girls’ school, killing 160+ using a Tomahawk missile and double-tapping the target zone (waiting until rescuers came in to help the children, only to strike it again), 13 military deaths on the U.S. side of the conflict, closing of the Straight of Hormuz (was open before the war) leading to global oil prices spiking, Trump also tried to use an image of himself alongside coffins during a dignified transfer ceremony to ghoulishly collect political donations from supporters, and delayed reveal by journalists of the true damage to U.S. military assets in the Middle East (destroyed infrastructure, aircraft, radars, bases, and other pricey equipment).
Also, from a Department of Defense (led by Sec. Pete Hegseth, who had been promoting “no quarter” for military in combat, which violates the Geneva Convention and internatioanl law) and White House showing extrajudicial killings of unknown sailors by the Navy (without evidence of anywrong doing or legal standing for the strikes) hype videos and willing to expose the personal information of Jeffrey Epstein victims (via the botched release of the Epstein Files by former AG Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel), they felt oddly compelled to never name those pilots or show imagery from that mission, leading to many to question if those events even happened in the way it was presented to the public (a theory making the rounds it was a “covery story” for the Trump government’s failed attempt to “steal Iran’s urainium” after the U.S. military destroyed their own aircraft near an enrichment site).
We’ll see if Universal will have the courage to explore the good alongside the bad (some basic reflection on why those pilots were in harm’s way?) with their Iran War movie (the first major one to be announced, we believe), but given how Paramount Skydance, and Amazon have been operating, we’re not going to hold our breath. That’s not it for Michael Bay as he’s in talks to direct the Netflix comic book series adaptation “Barbaric,” starring Sam Claflin (“Last Night in Soho”) and Patrick Stewart (“Avengers: Doomsday”).
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