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This will go into spoilers, so if you haven’t seen The Island, don’t worry... it doesn’t exist.

“I make movies for teenage boys,” said director Michael Bay. “Oh, dear, what a crime.” This was a response to the critical reaction his blockbusters tend to receive. “I don't make movies for critics,” he said. I make them for the average person to just go there and forget about their problems for two hours.” Unfortunately, when it came to the release of The Island, the average person didn’t turn up.

Written by Caspian Tredwell-Owen, DreamWorks purchased his script, whereupon Steven Spielberg passed it to Michael Bay. Describing what he read to be “dense as hell,” Bay brought in the writers of TV series Alias, Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman, to polish it up. The Island was unique in that it was one of the few summer blockbusters of 2005 that wasn’t based on anything, though it certainly borrows elements from a lot of former sci-fi films, such as Logan’s Run, THX 1138 and Dark City. It was Bay’s first film without Jerry Bruckheimer as producer.

Set in 2019, the film follows Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor); one of many people who live in an isolated facility after the outside world became contaminated. He’s also getting friendly with Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson), who has just won the weekly lottery to go to The Island, apparently the last place on Earth that is pathogen-free. Feeling discontent with his surroundings, Lincoln explains to Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean), the boss, that he wishes there was more. Late one night, Lincoln does some snooping around, and after climbing through a ventilation shaft, he discovers that the outside world is not contaminated. Those in the facility are in fact clones, and winners selected to go to The Island are merely primed to have their organs transplanted into their wealthy counterparts. Upon discovering the truth, Lincoln grabs Jordan, and they both escape the facility. However, a team of mercenaries led by Albert Laurent (Djimon Hounsou), has been ordered by Merrick to kill them, so that no one finds out what they really are.

The Island was very expensive, with a production budget of $126 million. The film opened on July 22, 2005 and charted at #4 with an opening weekend of $12.4 million. It was the first (and so far, only) Michael Bay to not reach #1 at the US box office. Not many directors have the guts to talk openly about their low opening grosses, but Bay was very vocal. “It’s a debacle,” he said. “It hurts. It’s always the director’s fault.” With domestic earnings of just $35.8 million, it was Bay’s lowest grossing film in the US.

As a comparison, films such as Boogeyman, Yours, Mine and Ours, and Tyler Perry’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman, were released the same year, and they all managed to open higher and earn more at the US box office than The Island. To really rub it in, the combined production cost of those three films is only just over half that of The Island’s. The film actually fared a little better internationally, with takings of $127.1 million, earning $162 million overall.

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