13 Hours

Every year, a handful of blockbuster movies get to tout themselves as Academy Award nominees due to their technical prowess. Thanks to categories like Visual Effects and Production Design, tonight you will hear phrases such as “Academy Award nominee Passengers” and “Academy Award nominee Suicide Squad” uttered with an entirely straight face. And while we might make jokes about the movies as a whole, there’s no denying that the technicians who work on these films are always extremely deserving of these honors. The technical categories at the Oscars are the one place where the process matters more than the final result.

The gallant paramilitary contractors of Michael Bay’s Benghazi film 13 Hours risked life and limb to defend our American way of life — our freedom to speak our minds, to worship as our souls move us, and most importantly, to carry fully loaded firearms into public spaces. And so it is with a dark, tragic irony that we relay the news that a Washington state woman sustained a gunshot wound during a screening of 13 Hours last night.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens wasn’t going to reign atop the box office forever. Something was going to take it down sooner or later and we’ll just be honest — we expected it would take a little longer than this. At the same time, anyone who thought that Ride Along 2 wouldn’t perform well has a short-term or poor memory, as the first film was a gigantic hit this time last year. An Ice Cube and Kevin Hart buddy cop comedy dethroned the biggest movie in the history of the U.S. box office from the top of the charts and it’s not that surprising.

Michael Bay sure did hustle on the production of his latest film — casting on 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi was first announced back in January, and today brings the first trailer for Bay’s action-packed latest, which looks to offer a bit of a change of pace for the director, who’s spent his recent years focusing on big muscles and bigger robots.

Previously reported with the title of 13 Hours or 13 Hours in Benghazi, Michael Bay’s upcoming military drama now has an official — and much more wordy — title. 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, or you can just keep calling it Bayghazi for short. The film also has an official release date so you can begin counting the days until you get to see a new Michael Bay movie that doesn’t involve Transformers (or so we think).

Michael Bay’s ‘13 Hours’ is shaping up to be something we’re legitimately interested in seeing (as if we’d ever skip a new Bay movie). After casting John Krasinski a few weeks back, the upcoming action flick has just recruited ‘Orange is the New Black’ star Pablo Schreiber (aka Pornstache) to join Bay’s latest.

Not long ago, it was reported that Michael Bay’s next directorial effort would be something a little more serious, and something which will probably feature fewer robots: ‘13 Hours,’ a Benghazi-based action drama. The first actor to sign up for what’s been affectionately called “Bayghazi” is John Krasinski, the former star of NBC’s ‘The Office.’ Presumably he’ll do more than shrug at Michael Bay’s camera.