Michael Bay may be one of the greatest commercial directors because he has directed some of the most commercially successful movies of all-time. Bad Boys and The Rock pounded the box office with cash and also assaulted the eyes and ears with dizzying images and loud glossy effects. Armageddon promises no different: a boisterous, show-offy answer to that other meteor movie this year, that's already had a deep impact on the box office. Bay had to pull himself from a special effects session to talk to us in Marina Del Rey, just weeks before his film's release. Michael Bay rough cut's Andy Jones.

MB: Sorry I'm late. I'm still trying to finish up this movie we're working on.

AJ: Do you have any concerns that this movie will play a lot like Deep Impact?

MB: I think it's a really different story. The stories are similar, but I think it's a really different movie. You know, it's a totally different experience.

AJ: But are you worried that people will go to see Armageddon on the first weekend and then say, "That was a lot like Deep Impact?"

MB: No, because we tested it with many audiences and those audiences had seen Deep Impact. They said they would still see this and they felt it was totally entertaining. I think there's a real need for movies right now.

AJ: What do you mean by that?

MB: I don't know. I just think there haven't been a lot of fun rides out there lately.

AJ: But if Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich had gone ahead with their original plans to make a movie about a comet striking the earth...

MB: Yeah, I went on a photo shoot and Roland was telling me how he really wanted to do a movie like this. And I beat him to the punch on that.

AJ: All this fascination with the end of the world. What is causing this, the millennium?

MB: It could be the millennium, but it's a subject that really hasn't been explored and it's a real subject. When you talk to NASA and find out all the real facts, it's pretty daunting -- a global-killer passed us three years ago, that they didn't know passed us, until three days after it passed. It got within 200,000 miles and you know, working with some of the world's experts, you realize you are just specks in time.

AJ: That's scary.

MB: No, you don't get scared. But you realize that there's not much you can do and NASA says this plan, we based some of this plan on a real method plan, not oil drillers, but the idea that if it was too close, they would have to split it -- if there was a way to split it. To send it around the Earth, but they say the only bad thing about this movie is this plan isn't even feasible for another 30 or 40 years. And our math is all off. If we were that close, to a rock that size already passing the moon, we'd all be dead. You know? Isn't there a lot of guess work involved in that too? I mean, trying to split an asteroid... I don't know. I just can't imagine. I don't know. The thing is, NASA says they just have to know about it years in advance. And they only have money to track 3 percent of the sky which Billy Bob says in this movie.

AJ: What kind of movies do you like to watch?

MB: I like all sorts. I'm a big Barry Levinson fan. I love Spielberg. I like all sorts of movies. I really do. All genres. Bad movies too.

AJ: What's your favorite bad movie?

MB: My favorite bad movie? Night of the Living Dead's pretty bad. That's a good bad movie.

AJ: You got your start at Lucasfilm...

MB: When I was 15, I worked at Lucasfilm as a librarian of all the artwork of the Star Wars movies and The Empire Strikes Back and so when I was 15 and a half I had my own little desk and office and a phone. And I got Raiders of the Lost Ark storyboards. They were these big things I got from London and I had to catalog them. So I saw the entire movie on storyboard frames and I told all my friends. I said, "This movie, that Spielberg's going to do, is going to suck." And I went to the Mann's Chinese Theater and I was blown away.

AJ: How'd you get that job?

MB: My neighbor was the president of Lucasfilm and I asked him for a summer job and it was a rough job. I mean, I was with some sci-fi guy who was just, like, Mr. Invention. It was interesting though, 'cause I got to see all the buzz behind-the-scenes stuff. I even got to see people, who said they were really Darth Vader, coming into the office wanting money from George Lucas.

AJ: Do you feel the pressure? Your movie opens in a couple of weeks and you're still working on it...

MB: Well, you can always work on a movie, even after it's released, because you can only make it better. Coppola said something very interesting. He said, "It's not what you miss, it's what you catch." You know, you can always tweak it, you can always make it better.... Yeah, there's pressure. This was a long haul. I've been working on this movie for a year and eight months.... My effects people, I've given them until the very last minute. There are a lot of effects that you haven't seen yet. There's some sequences in New York that you haven't seen where we blow up Grand Central Station. It's pretty amazing. The guy who did Titanic, Rob Legato's doing that. Shanghai is, like, 100 percent better than what you saw. Rob's doing that one as well.

AJ: I think my favorite part is the dog attacking the blow-up Godzilla.

MB: We trained the dog for three weeks...

AJ: Really?

MB: Really.

AJ: Were you surprised by how disappointing Godzilla did? Do you think Devlin and Emmerich have gotten a bum rap on that?

MB: Yeah, you know, it's tough. They had a studio that boasted, that said, "We're going to make $90 million opening weekend," and that's like a bad thing to say. I mean, don't boast before your movie opens. Because I think the public will turn on you. So, I think there's some of that. And it's still a successful movie. They will make their money back, but not what they thought.

AJ: Why do you think so many commercial directors now are able to make the transition to feature films?

MB: I think it started with Tony Scott, Ridley Scott and Alan Parker. They were all commercial directors. That was, like, the first wave. And then it stopped for quite a while. David Fincher and myself helped open the door for a lot of people. I personally think that there are commercial directors that are not ready to make the jump. I think the tendency in Hollywood has been to jump on the bandwagon. "Oh, if those commercial directors can do it, then everyone can do it." I just think that the door might be opening too much and then it will close again.

AJ: This is much harder work than making commercials.

MB: Commercials: You're in and out. Movies: It's just day in and day out. I mean, we work like dogs. I mean, it doesn't look like it, but we do. I can't tell you. I've been working seven days a week since the movie wrapped and I've been working seven days a week since the movie started shooting. Commercials: You know you have a mini-story to tell in 30 seconds. A movie, you have pace, characters and character arcs, and it's just sort of a whole different deal, a whole different medium.

AJ: Did you know it was going to be such a long-haul when you got involved?

MB: I think after we pitched them we went down the elevator, and I went, "Oh my God, how are we going to make the movie? Where do we start?" And it was too late... Freaked me out. It did freak me out...