Michael Bay Sues for $1.5 Million Over Cadillac F1 Super Bowl Spot

Action film director Michael Bay is crying foul over Cadillac’s upcoming F1 Super Bowl commercial, claiming in a new $1.5 million lawsuit that he was drafted as “the most American director” around to produce the pricey spot but later was cheated when Cadillac allegedly stole his ideas and cut him loose.

The 19-page breach of contract and fraud lawsuit, filed Friday in Los Angeles and obtained by Rolling Stone, claims Dan Towriss, the owner and CEO of the new Cadillac F1 racing team, reached out to Bay personally on Nov. 28, 2025, saying he wanted to hire “the most American director [he] could find” to conceptualize, produce, and direct the commercial set to introduce a new Formula 1 racing team under the Cadillac brand. Bay, the director of blockbuster hits The Rock, Armageddon, and Pearl Harbor, alleges he put his other projects on hold to accept Towriss’ offer of producing and directing the high-profile but extremely rushed  launch of the F1 team on the Super Bowl stage.

Then midway through the production, after Bay and his team allegedly expended hundreds of hours “working nearly nonstop, Towriss abruptly decided to ‘go in a different direction’ and use someone else to complete the project,” the lawsuit states. It claims Towriss and his Cadillac F1 team “have apparently stolen Bay’s ideas and work for the commercial, without paying for them.”

“They planned all along to rip him off. They wanted a ‘Michael Bay’ commercial, in other words, at a bargain-basement price,” the lawsuit alleges. Bay says the purported failure to honor the deal particularly stung because he had a 25-year relationship with Cadillac owner General Motors. Bay says he helped develop the vehicle design for the Bumblebee character in his Transformers franchise, and GM later sold cars by the very same design.

In his lawsuit, Bay includes an image of a written proposal allegedly used by Towriss and his ad agency to entice him to the job that said the “legendary project” called for “one of the most legendary storytellers of our generation to help bring it to life.” Bay says he was asked to complete the project on “an extreme rush basis,” by Feb. 2, 2026, so they could submit it for approval by the NFL in time for the televised championship Super Bowl LX game airing Sunday, Feb. 8.

Bay says he was wary about working with the third-party agency and expressed his reservations to Towriss. “They steal my ideas. They try to pick my brain and give these ideas to younger cheaper commercial directors,” Bay says he told Towriss. In response, Towriss allegedly told him, “Well, I’m paying for this Super Bowl commercial, so Cadillac and I are in charge.”

Bay says Towriss vaguely mentioned an idea about using a speech by John F. Kennedy in the commercial, and Bay pulled up a clip from Transformers 3, in which he had overlaid a JFK speech about the “race to the moon” with heart-pounding music and visuals of NASA rockets prepping for launch. “Towriss was thrilled,” the lawsuit states.

Bay claims he also shared a clip from Armageddon, featuring a dry desert landscape. “Again, Towriss was thrilled,” his lawsuit alleges. Bay says he suggested gold colors, sun flares, dust, and heat ripples, citing The Right Stuff as his inspiration.

After the first major meeting with Towriss, “Bay and his team worked tirelessly around the clock to prepare for this production. Bay personally pulled an all-nighter that evening, putting together various ideas for the project,” the lawsuit states. Bay says he later showed clips from his prior films to the agency, including specific editing styles. He claims the agents “loved” his presentation.

After that, “Bay himself pulled a second all-nighter simply to prepare for his follow-up Webex with Towriss the following day,” the lawsuit says. Bay says his team approached the process “extremely seriously” and “understood it would cost defendants upwards of $15 million simply to pay for and broadcast this commercial once during the Super Bowl.”

Bay claims he was clear with Towriss that he was developing films for Apple, Amazon, Universal, and Paramount Pictures but was willing to put everything on hold for the commercial. He says Towriss replied, “OK, let’s get to work, I will let everyone know,” referring to the agency.

The director says he started hiring staff with the understanding he had a ballpark budget of $2 million for production costs and $1 million for post-production. Bay says his team tracked down the only available F1 car then physically in the U.S., which had been used in the recent film F1, and that they were in the process of shipping it to begin filming on the Mojave Airport runway as early as Dec. 11, 2025. But then, on Dec. 6, a freelance producer allegedly texted that she had some “not great news” and that the agency had decided to “go in a different direction” and use someone else to complete the commercial.

Bay’s lawsuit says the “bait and switch” led Bay to text Towriss directly, asking for an explanation. “I’m not at all happy with how this played out,” Towriss purportedly responded in a text message excerpted in the lawsuit. “I will be looking for a future project to bring you with no agency in the middle.”

According to the complaint, promotional materials related to Cadillac’s F1 Super Bowl commercial were later released online and contain specific elements originally proposed by Bay, including “shimmering” and “highly reflective gold chrome.”

“Defendants specifically solicited Bay for this project,” the lawsuit alleges. “When plaintiff Bay made his sales pitch to Towriss, he asked Towriss point-blank whether he was being hired.”

The new lawsuit includes claims for breach of verbal contract, breach of implied-in-face contract, and fraud. It alleges the defendants agreed to pay Bay’s standard director’s fee and the producer’s fee for Bay’s and his team’s work, which totaled approximately $1.5 million. Bay is now asking for a judgement that includes compensatory damages of at least $1.5 million as well as punitive damages.