Michael Bay Becomes Second Highest-Grossing Director Of All Time

With over $2 billion generated, Michael Bay became the second-highest-grossing director of all time at the U.S. box office this weekend.

Bay's personal website pointed out the accomplishment, which saw him pass Forrest Gump and Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis on the all-time list in order to take the #2 spot behind Steven Spielberg.

It will be years, if ever, before he has any serious chance of overtaking Spielberg, who nas nearly twice what Bay does on the charts, with over $4.1 billion. Bay averages significantly more per film than does Spielberg, but if that was the yardstick used to measure all-time success, neither filmmaker would come close to George Lucas, James Cameron or Pixar's Lee Unkrich.

Bay's highest-grossing film of his career is Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which generated $402 million; Spielberg's is E.T., which earned $435 million, including a limited-edition re-release.

Adjusted for inflation, E.T. is the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time, behind Gone With the Wind, Star Wars and The Sound of Music. On that same list, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen takes the #81 spot, between The Bridge on the River Kwai and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

The just-released Transformers: Age of Extinction, the lowest-rated installment in the massive, blockbuster franchise on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, is quickly on the way to becoming the highest-grossing film of 2014 so far.

Over on the actor side, things look like they'll be turned on their head in the next few years. While the current #1 all-time earner is Tom Hanks, he's got less than $300 million on Samuel L. Jackson and only a bit more than that ahead of Harrison Ford -- both of whom have at least one and probably a number of major hits coming down the pike while Hanks has mostely eased into smaller films.