Bay is looking to improve on Revenge of the Fallen...
Despite making a shedload of cash, it’s fair to say that the last Transformers sequel wasn’t universally loved. Even director Michael Bay seems to have a few problems with Revenge of the Fallen , promising that Transformers 3 will learn from the mistakes of its predecessor.
“I’ll take some of the criticism,” said Bay in a recent interview with USA Today . “It was very hard to put (the sequel) together that quickly after the writers' strike,” he said, before singling out one element of the writing in particular that he plans to change.
“One thing we're getting rid of is what I call the dorky comedy,” said Bay, with reference to the wisecracking twins Skids and Mudflap, who he promises are, “basically gone,” this time around.
Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura also agrees that a few things need tinkering to make sure the series ends with a bang. “We tried to do too many things in the second movie,” he told USA Today , “which didn't give enough time in any one of them. We were constantly jumping to the next piece of information, the next place.”
A refreshingly honest appraisal then, a rarity for a Hollywood big-gun like Bay, and one that hopefully bodes well for a leaner, meaner entry to the series.
Megan's gone, but there's some new eye-candy in town...
If the announcement of a third film was no surprise, the revelation that Megan Fox would not be on board certainly was. If you believe Fox’s agent, Megan left the series on her own terms, although initial reports said she’d been given the push. It’s not entirely clear who to believe here, although comparing Michael Bay to Hitler in an interview with Wonderland magazine may not have counted in the actress’s favour…
In any case, there will still be plenty for the male half of the audience (“half”…who are we kidding?) to drool over, in the delectable shape of Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who will be taking up the reins as Shia LaBeouf’s love interest.
She may never have acted before, but the British-born Huntington-Whiteley has worked with Bay in the past, albeit only in an advert for Victoria’s Secret . And if she needs any thespo tips, she can always ask her boyfriend, Jason Statham. Although on second thoughts, perhaps not.
Shia is back for round 3...
So Fox is out, but Shia LaBeouf is still very much on board as the perma-terrified Sam Witwicky. And like Bay and di Bonaventura, he’s toeing the party line that Revenge of the Fallen left plenty of room for improvement.
During recent press at the Cannes Film Festival, LaBeouf told reporters that, “When I saw the second movie, I wasn’t impressed with what we did…There were some really wild stunts in it, but the heart was gone…we got lost.”
“We tried to get bigger,” he explained. “Mike went so big that it became too big, and I think you lost the anchor of the movie…You lost a bit of the relationships. Unless you have those relationships, then the movie doesn’t matter. Then it’s just a bunch of robots fighting each other.”
However, if you’re thinking that we’ll be getting low-key introspection from the third film, think again, as Shia went on to rather confusingly claim that, “it’s going to be the craziest action movie ever made.” He goes on to stress that the body count will be higher this time, with “a lot of death, human death,” apparently high on the agenda.
And what of the departure of Fox? Surely a third set of love scenes would have been welcome when he signed on? “I love Megan and I miss the girl,” said LaBeouf to USA Today , “but Sam and Mikaela became one character, and here ... you have discovery again from a new perspective.”
McDormand and Malkovich will beef up the cast...
So while it’s a given that there will be action galore, apparently there will be some actual acting as well, with Frances McDormand and John Malkovich bringing a touch of gravitas to proceedings.
Malkovich will play Sam’s boss, whilst McDormand has been lined up for a fairly meaty role as the National Intelligence Director. In addition to the two old stagers, frat-pack funnyman Ken Leong (he of The Hangover , Role Models and Knocked Up ) has also been cast, presumably to provide the comic relief.
Meanwhile Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson have both confirmed they will be returning to the franchise as military types Lennox and Epps. That’s the humans sorted then, so what about the robots?
Shockwave will appear...
Plot details remain somewhat thin on the ground, but Michael Bay has dropped a couple of hints, including the intriguing tidbit that the film will, “delve into the space race between the USSR and the USA suggesting there was a hidden Transformers role in it all that remains one of the planet’s most dangerous secrets.”
Sounds a tad daft to us, but hey, we’re not talking Citizen Kane here are we? Meanwhile, Bay has also confirmed that a villain is in place, namely the robot dictator Shockwave. A one-eyed Transformer who’s alternative form is basically a massive cannon, Shockwave snatched his chance to take power on the Transformer homeworld of Cybertron, when the Autobots and Decepticons upped sticks to Earth.
Bay is convinced the fans will be pleased with his version of Shockwave, after admitting that the last film’s big bad, The Fallen, was “kind of a shit character.” Blunt and to the point…we like this man’s honesty!
But Unicron probably won't...
Fanboys may well be appeased by the presence of Shockwave, but according to a poll from IGN , the Transformer most of them are hoping to see is the villainous, planet-sized (yes, you read that correctly) Unicron.
However, in an interview with Rotten Tomatoes , producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura all but ruled out the possibility, on the grounds that he would be a significantly problematic character to film.
“Unicron worries me because it's so big that it dwarfs emotion,” he said. “It's so hard, because when you're working to that scale, it sort of becomes outside any kind of human reality you have.”
“Because of its size, it becomes sort of impersonal when it gets to that scale,” he continued. “I remember seeing the second Fantastic Four and Galactus, and suddenly I was in another world and it took it away from the human characters. I think if you go to Unicron, you're going to end up sacrificing your human characters. And for me that worries me because I like the human characters.”
All of which adds to the growing sense that Bay and di Bonaventura are particularly anxious to avoid the “bigger, louder, dumber” prototype of action movie franchises. Michael Bay in sensible decision shocker? Could well be…
There will be a Ferrari Transformer...
If this was all beginning to sound a little po-faced, the latest autobot recruit nicely restores the serious filmmaking/cool shit balance. Because brilliantly, the newest addition to the Transformers stable will be the rather sexy Ferrari 458 Italia.
A stunningly sleek piece of engineering boasting a set of curves to rival the absent Megan Fox, the 562bhp (translation: very fast) supercar costs a cool £170,000, so expect the studio moneymen to be tearing their hair out as Bay blows up three of them in the first week of filming.
It has yet to be confirmed what the car will transform into, but our money is on Hot Rod, a flashy show-off with a fairly high opinion of himself. The sort of person who might own a Ferrari 458 for example…
It will be in 3D...
Hands up who’s surprised by this one then? Well, actually, we are a bit. Because although every second release seems to be accompanied by a pair of silly glasses these days, Michael Bay has been vocally sceptical about the technology in the past.
“I prefer the flat screen,” he said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal last year. “I’m not jumping to do 3-D at all. It’s a pain in the neck to shoot it and I actually like the flat image. I’ve heard that some people can’t even see 3-D and, moreover, that a major side effect of watching it is feeling exhausted. Can you imagine how you’d feel watching one of my movies in 3-D?”
But while it’s certainly true that just two dimensions of Michael Bay are enough to melt your eyeballs, the studio appears to have got its way, with the film now officially confirmed to be a 3D affair.
Whether or not it will be shot with 3D cameras has yet to be disclosed, but it’s fairly safe to assume that given Bay’s reservations, it will almost certainly be added in post-production. Michael Bay as the suffering artist, put upon by studio pressures? Never thought we’d see the day…
Shooting has already begun...
With Transformers 3 pencilled in for a July 1 2011 release date, Bay has been swift to pull his finger out, with filming already underway in LA. Whilst most of that has been on a soundstage, one of Bay’s proposed location shoots has already run into trouble.
The plan was to shoot several scenes in around the National Mall in Washington, DC. Just to clarify, that’s the nation’s political front lawn, taking in the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and the US Capitol. Unsurprisingly, the National Park Service isn’t keen on a bunch of oversized robots smashing the place up.
A spokesman for the service told the Washington Post that the production crew, “have asked to do some things that simply are not done on the National Mall,” one of which is understood to be a car chase through the Mall’s pristine gravel paths!
On top of that, the plan for “simulated explosions and pyrotechnics” on Pennsylvania Avenue has also been dismissed. Some bloke called Obama lives there apparently. Bloody killjoys!
Heidi Montag probably won't make the cut...
With Megan Fox out of the picture, professional airhead and star of The Hills Heidi Montag cannily spotted a pneumatic starlet-shaped gap in the Transformers 3 cast. Fancying herself a perfect fit for the role, Montag knocked up this hilarious, and yet utterly serious audition tape for Michael Bay…
Gun-firing ability…check! Any semblance of self-awareness…totally MIA. Still, maybe Bay will take pity on her and write her in. We’re not holding our breath though…
But Sir Ben Kingsley really should...
Poor old Heidi’s attempt was unintentionally chucklesome, but this one is possibly even funnier. Sir Ben Kingsley certainly knows how to kick someone when they’re down, as witnessed in this spoof audition he filmed for US chat show Lopez Tonight .
Over to you Michael. Sign the man up, at once!
It will be the last in the series...
Love it or loathe it, this looks to be the end of the Transformers series, at least as far as its current incarnation goes. In his interview with USA Today , Bay revealed that, “as a trilogy, it really ends.”
“This one really builds to a final crescendo,” he says. “It’s not three multiple endings. It could be rebooted again, but I think it has a really killer ending.”
Sounds as though Bay is aiming to draw a line under the series with an ending that doesn’t allow for any more sequels. With Shia LaBoeuf also banging on about “human death”, has poor old Sam got his card marked? It would certainly be a dramatic end to the series in its current shape, if a bit of a downer!
What seems almost inevitable however, is that this won’t be the last we see of the franchise in one form or another. Executive Producer Steven Spielberg referred to the potential for making “many, many more Transformers movies in the future,” before the first pair had even made a cent. Provided this third film doesn’t completely bomb at the box-office, we can see ourselves writing the words “ Transformers reboot” in the not-too-distant future…
