Jun

Bay, Transformers 3, and Shockwave

“I’ll take some of the criticism,” says Bay, standing at a set built to resemble a dilapidated nuclear reactor. “It was very hard to put (the sequel) together that quickly after the writers’ strike (of 2007-08).”

Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura says the rush strained the plot: “We tried to do too many things in the second movie, which didn’t give enough time in any one of them. We were constantly jumping to the next piece of information, the next place.”

Bay is not one for mea culpas, but he says he can do better. “This one really builds to a final crescendo. It’s not three multiple endings,” the director says.

Bay calls the second film’s villain, The Fallen, “kind of a (expletive) character.” The new movie’s foe is certain to make fans of the original ’80s incarnation smile: Shockwave, the robot cyclops-turned-laser-cannon, who became dictator of their home world of Cybertron after the other Autobots and Decepticons journeyed to Earth.

“One thing we’re getting rid of is what I call the dorky comedy,” Bay adds. So the twins, the two bumbling, slang-spewing robots? “They’re basically gone,” he says, though John Turturro returns for comic relief.

Plot details are under wraps, but it delves into the space race between the U.S.S.R. and the USA, suggesting there was a hidden Transformers role in it all that remains one of the planet’s most dangerous secrets. “The movie is more of a mystery,” Bay says. “It ties in what we know as history growing up as kids with what really happened.”

Bay hints that there may be a lot of that. “As a trilogy, it really ends,” he says. “It could be rebooted again, but I think it has a really killer ending.”

May

Bad Boys on Blu-ray

Pre-order your copy now at Amazon.com.

Apr

Armageddon Now on Blu-ray

Get it now at Amazon.com.

Apr

Michael Bay Meets TV

Director Michael Bay is making his first entry into unscripted television, teaming with “Top Chef” producers Magical Elves to produce “One Way Out.”

In the series, contestants from all walks of life are pitted against each other in extreme competitions in hostile new environments. Bay, the bombastic director of “Transformers,” “Armageddon” and other hits, promises “a game with no rules” that “remains true to the filmmaker’s signature style.”

“For my first television project I wanted to do something that had never been done before, and I believe that ‘One Way Out’ accomplishes that,” Bay said. “Combining unique twists, death-defying challenges, and stunning visuals, we are reinventing the genre, showing just how far people will go when they are stripped of their bare necessities and forced to do whatever it takes to survive.”

Source: THR