Here’s a story you likely didn’t see coming — The Wrap has reported that Michael Bay is facing charges in Italy related to the killing of a pigeon on the set of 6 Underground five years ago.
It’s been said that a homing pigeon was killed during the production of 6 Underground in Rome, which Michael Bay directed for Netflix. An unnamed individual allegedly witnessed the event and took a picture for the Italian authorities, but Michael Bay has denied the allegations. “I am a well-known animal lover and major animal activist,” Michael Bay said in a statement to The Wrap. “No animal involved in the production was injured or harmed. Or on any other production I’ve worked on in the past 30 years.” Pigeons are a protected species in the country, and it’s against the law to harm, kill, or capture any wild bird, and that includes pigeons.
Michael Bay has made three separate attempts to throw the case out of court over the past year but hasn’t had any luck. He was given the option to settle out of court with a small fine, but Bay didn’t take the deal, insisting that he has “clear video evidence, a multitude of witnesses, and safety officers that exonerates us from these claims. And disproves their one paparazzi photo — which gives a false story.” Although he would easily be able to afford to pay the small fine just to sweep the whole business under the rug, Bay said that he won’t “because I would not plead guilty to having harmed an animal.“
6 Underground was released on Netflix in 2019 and starred Ryan Reynolds as the leader of a group of people who fake their deaths and form a vigilante team to stage a coup d’état against a ruthless dictator. The film was one of Netflix’s most expensive productions at the time, and although a sequel was initially planned, Netflix’s Scott Stuber later cancelled the project, saying, “We didn’t feel like we got there on that one creatively. It was a nice hit, but at the end of the day we didn’t feel like we nailed the mark to justify coming back again. There just wasn’t that deep love for those characters or that world.“