By Anthony Breznican, USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES — Throughout history, great leaders have stood in marvel at the foot of the pyramids of Giza —Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte. Now it's Optimus Prime's turn.

Moviegoers who helped Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen earn $200.1 million in its opening five days, just short of record-holder The Dark Knight, know the computer-effects-heavy film plays a lot of tricks on the eye. One thing they're seeing for real are the pyramids, because director Michael Bay was determined to shoot the shapeshifting-robot finale on the surface of the ancient structures.

"The studio was saying: 'You can't do that, you can't go there. It's dangerous. A-lah-lah-lah-lah,' " Bay said recently as sound editors tweaked the roar and grind of robot carnage as the battle in question played out on a giant theater screen before them.

"They always try to discourage an American crew from going to a Muslim country. "But that's kind of flawed, because when I went on a scout, it's very different than people perceive in the news. It's a great place, and people are very friendly there.

"I almost put it in my contract that I'm not doing this movie if I don't shoot in Egypt. I finally got their word: 'OK, you can shoot there.' "

That wasn't the last piece of red tape to be cut through. Though the producers had contracted with Henry Kissinger's consulting firm to negotiate access more than a year in advance, the permit they had been promised wasn't ready when Bay and Co. finally arrived.

"My producer was panicking because they said 'Yes, you're approved,' and we had went through their state department, prime minister, the major generals ... everything. They kept saying 'It's OK, it's OK.' But then you get there, and it's not OK when the police surround your trucks," Bay says. "No one wants to take responsibility for anything. No one wants to say, 'Yeah.' "

Some voted to go home, even with millions of dollars on the line, Bay says. "But I said, 'We are going to shoot on those (expletive) pyramids!' Somehow, by the grace of God, there was a loophole." They reached out to the head of the nation's ancient cultural heritage, who gave them the green light.

"Dr. (Zahi) Hawass, who controls all the antiquities in Egypt, he can say whatever goes," Bay says. "So we were finally invited in to shoot, literally, on the pyramids."

In the final cut, much of that scene is dominated by CG-animated alien robots, including Devastator — the new villain made out of seven individual robots who hide in the form of construction equipment. But the flesh-and-blood actors also got to romp on the pyramids.

Bay himself stood on a high ledge filming scenes with actor John Turturro (reprising his role as the blowhard former government agent who's a Transformers expert). "We're 30 rows up, and it's just neat. Pictures don't do justice to it, but on this movie, you get the scale of what the pyramid really is because John's right there," Bay says.

The filmmaker says it was overwhelming for both of them, a feeling that struck a few days later when they were in Jordan shooting atop a mountainside-carved temple in the ancient city of Petra. "(Turturro) was looking at Petra, and it was the morning of, just setting up, and he had a tear in his eye. I was like 'What's going on?' " Bay recalls. "He said, 'You never get to do this. I was at the pyramids just the other day, and now I'm here. You just never get to do this.' "

That was the final problem: an awestruck crew.

"I actually had to yell once: 'Anyone pulls out a (expletive) video camera again, you're going home!' We were shooting on top of this palace right next to the pyramids. The sun has just dropped, and you've got literally 15 minutes of light — one chance, and you've got to get the scene. You have to be ready to knock it out. But the crew is there with the video cameras, posing and taking photos, because it's a once-in-a-lifetime place. I was like, 'Guys! This is my time now!' " he says, laughing.

"It was the end of the show, and it was funny," he says, shrugging. "We barely made it."

Source: USAToday

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Pic takes $200.1 million from domestic box office

By PAMELA MCCLINTOCK

The 'Transformers' sequel pulled in $390.4 million worldwide over 5 days.

Aside from its whopping five-day domestic tally -- the second highest of all time -- Paramount's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" broke records in several countries overseas, leading to a massive $390.4 million worldwide opening through Sunday, one of the best global launches ever.

Official weekend numbers released Monday morning showed "Transformers 2" grossing $200.1 million domestically--slightly less than the $201.2 million estimated on Sunday--over the course of its five-day opening. That easily eclipsed the $152.4 million earned by "Spider-Man 2," which previously held the five-day record for a Wednesday launch.

And "Transformers 2" came within shouting distance of the best five-day gross of all time: $203.8 million for WB's "The Dark Knight."

Overseas, the action tentpole grossed $166.1 million as it opened day and date in virtually every territory (pic opened the weekend before in the U.K. and Japan). Official tally was ahead of the Sunday estimate of $162 million.

Either way, "Transformers 2" scored the second best international opening of all time, after "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" ($216.3 million), "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" ($193 million) and "Spider-Man 3" ($164.9 million).

The sequel's foreign cume was $190.3 million when factoring in the $24.1 million earned the previous weekend in the U.K. and Japan.

Source: Variety

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Nelson here...

For haters and critics, here’s a little something from me to you: my sympathy goes out to you guys.

Maybe next time we could have a $20,000 contest for the crankiest and most hateful review. And if you make it personal, I might throw in a bottle of Cristal.

Paramount's national exit polling revealed several notable facts. While the first "Transformers" film, released in 2007, skewed 60-40 toward men over women, the split in the new film was more even at 54% male, 46% female. More than 90% of those surveyed said the new movie was as good as or better than the first film. About 67% of moviegoers polled said the film was "excellent," an even better score than that generated by Paramount's "Star Trek," one of the year's best-reviewed movies.

Source: LATimes

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From Variety:

Paramount-DreamWorks' action-sequel "Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen" continued to dominate the box office Friday raking in $36.7 million and raising its running domestic cume to $125.9 million over three days.

While "Revenge of the Fallen" is heading for a five-day worldwide B.O. record, box office observers have estimated that its domestic haul over the same frame could be north of $190 million. "Dark Knight" holds the five-day opening domestic B.O. record with $203.8 million. Directed by Michael Bay who also helmed the first "Transformers," "Revenge of the Fallen" is currently playing at 4,234 theaters, 169 of which are Imax.

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From THR:

'Transformers' on track to reach $200 million

Something has transformed "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" into a boxoffice monster.

Michael Bay's action sequel -- co-produced by DreamWorks and Hasbro, and distributed by Paramount -- rung up an estimated $36.7 million on Friday. That shaped a three-day cume of $126 million to give the Shia LaBeouf-Megan Fox starrer more than a shot at mounting a $200 million-plus debut through Sunday.

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By: Mike Fleming

As Michael Bay’s “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” chases box office records after grossing $60.6 million on opening day, the filmmaker took time out to talk with BFD about the business of blockbusters, the impact of piracy, and the virtues of sharing risk with studios.

BFD: How do you spend opening night?

Bay: I always go to Mr. Chow’s for dinner with my producers, studio and marketing execs, my agents and lawyers. We get our first numbers there and then we hit the theaters. You’ve got to go there. And hope you see happy, smiling faces walking out. Last night, I tried to sneak in the side, but somebody noticed me and then they’re lining up for pictures. At the Arclight, somebody yelled “speech!” and I found myself talking to 900 people.

BFD: Salary deferrals have become commonplace, but not when you made “Pearl Harbor.” You made more money, but said, “Never again.”

Bay: Well, that was because of the way it came about. You work on the movie for nine months and then right before you shoot Joe Roth says, “Mike, I’m going to take away your fee.” It didn’t feel good.

BFD: So you deferred on “Transformers” and the sequel, and the L. A. Times predicts you might make more than any director on a movie. How do you feel about these deals, which are becoming the new economics of Hollywood moviemaking?

Bay: Okay. I run my sets and my pictures tight and we came in $4 million under budget. There is so much waste in this business, directors who have big shows like this one, who keep a second unit for the entire time. We were able to make this for $194 million, instead of the $230-270 million that the average sequel of this nature seems to cost. I work with one of the best crews in the world, we work efficient 12-hour days. We don’t build $3 million sets and then the director walks in and says, “Fuck it, I’m not going to use that set.” The stories I hear from my crew members, of waste on other pictures, of directors shooting a six- or eight-hour day, it’s just staggering. Some directors will look a studio executive in the eye and say, “Sure I’ll come in at this budget,” and then they behave like terrorists. By then, you’re committed and screwed. The thing that “Pearl Harbor” taught me was you’ve got to become a partner with the studio and deferring makes you more invested in that. I think it’s important and I think you need to be honest with your partner.

BFD: You have final cut as director and producer, but that’s also going by the wayside. What leverage does it give you?

Bay: It’s a club you hide behind your back but you hope you never have to use. Final cut for some can be a defense mechanism and for others an extortion mechanism. I am not one of those people who hold out my final cut; I think that’s ridiculous. I can think of examples where it allowed me to put some comic moments in these films. The studios have always been very good with me and never demand I take anything out. They suggest, sometimes I say no and then we see if the whole audience laughs and I was right. You need more laughter in the summertime. Literally, I was told we shouldn’t have talking robots in the first film. But you’ve got to be able to listen to your audience and to producers who look at your movie and bounce things around with you. That’s the Don Simpson-Jerry Bruckheimer dynamic and any director needs those people because you are just too close to it. I still feel if I could have had two more weeks on “Transformers,” I could fix a lot of stuff. But I ran out of time. My philosophy on final cut is you protect the movie at all costs. At studios, you deal with people who have their own agendas and you have to keep this agenda-free and all about the movie and the experience.

BFD: Days before the release of your film, Paramount restructured its film group. How did that impact you and what does it mean going forward on the next film?

Bay: It doesn’t affect anything, really. Paramount has literally said, “Here’s your budget, see you later.” It’s staggering, really, but they trust me to come in on budget. I don’t ask for money when I’m shooting and stay on course. I’ve never even given them dailies. I’d assemble real rough cut scenes, sizzle reels, cut to music, so they can enjoy it and get what the movie is.

BFD: Three days before shooting, Sony scrapped “Moneyball” after Steven Soderbergh threw a curveball to Amy Pascal and turned in a rewrite that veered from the movie she was willing to finance. On “Transformers,” do you feel an unspoken agreement to the studio to deliver the film exactly as they expect since they aren’t watching dailies?

Bay: I can only compare it to the first movie. The hardest thing for a director trying to set up a franchise is establishing tone. I wanted it to be edgy enough to be cool for older kids but accessible to kids and moms and I wanted it to be funny. We did a lot of improv and I hired funny actors who could do that. Steven [Spielberg] called me up and said, “Mike, you’re shooting a lot of stuff that’s not in the script.” I said, “Steven, some of it is going to suck, but some of it will be gems in the movie.” That’s how I work. I will say it made them nervous until they saw the final result, how much the audience liked it and the tone that it set for the franchise.

BFD: What’s one of those gems?

Bay: A perfect example came in the first movie, the masturbation thing. There was one line of dialogue that hinted about it in a roundabout way. But Julie White is a wonderful theater actress and Kevin Dunn and Shia, we were able to make that scene into something. I shoot fast enough that I was able to devote several hours to having fun with that scene and make more than what was on the page. I try to shoot at efficient clip so I can allow myself time to work with the actors and experiment.

BFD: Much was made of a memo you sent to Paramount fearing that “Transformers” wasn’t registering as an event film because of the marketing. How do you feel now?

Bay: Thankful, because they did a great job. At the time, they were so focused on "Star Trek" and I was like, “Hey, we’re the four-quadrant movie just sitting out here. I need a little attention here.” It’s good to put people on notice. They have a talented group at Paramount, they did a fantastic job. They took the email very seriously, and we had a big meeting, not only domestic but foreign. A lot of people were brought in and it all really came together in a huge way.

BFD: You gambled on both “Transformers” films and “Pearl Harbor.” If you found another franchise, could you see yourself going a step further and bypassing the studio as financier?

Bay: I will always do these films with a studio, because it’s good for you when the studio has skin in the game when they’re releasing a big picture for you. But maybe it’s going to be half of the skin in the game next time, and the rest will be independent financing. I’m absolutely thinking along those lines right now, because studios don’t have as much money and they’re spreading it around to take as many swings at the plate as they can. Absolutely, I want to get into that.



Download (Photo by Jaimie Trueblood)


BFD: Considering your development on this movie was interrupted by the writer’s strike and you risked being shut down any moment by shooting after the expiration of the SAG contract, what was the hardest thing about making “Transformers: The Fallen?”

Bay: That could have been the hardest thing. With an impending strike, we had 12 pages of a treatment. I worked very closely with the writers, great collaborators, who suddenly went on strike. I said, “We’re going to start prepping this movie at full force, scout places I think are going to be in this movie and try and put this together as best we could.” There might be an actor’s strike, but I told the studio we’re going to shoot this on June 2, come hell or high water. We took a gamble that the writers would come back from the strike in time and we just made it. At one point, we were the only movie shooting in the country. But I had to gamble. I have a loyal crew and my job gives 2,000 to 2,500 people jobs. It was scary because so many people were out of work and you hear your crew say, “Wow, I might have to move out of my house.” You feel responsible.

BFD: Considering that all guild contracts will expire in 2011 and Paramount and DreamWorks want the third film in 2011 or 2012, how does the likelihood of more labor trouble influence the next film?

Bay: I’ll be honest, I need to take a break. I need to do something different and get away from robots for a bit. I think it will be better for the franchise to give some space. But I don’t think you can play for the strike. That was the problem last time. There was fear and all the studios were playing for a strike that never happened. I felt in my heart that the strike would never happen because I saw where the country was going and felt, how can you strike in a time like this? Look, the next one’s going to get made when it gets made, no matter what. If we have to shut down, we shut down.

BFD: You make the kind of pictures that studios want. How long will this serve your own creative ambitions as a filmmaker?

Bay: That’s the issue. I fear for the business, the way it’s contracting. I like all kinds of movies and dramas seem to be hurting right now, along with small independents. I have projects in those areas and it’s frightening. There should be a place for my type of movies and a place for the ones Steven Soderbergh makes. I’m worried the economy is going to make it only one type and that’s going to be really boring.

BFD: Dramas are being put in turnaround after films like “State of Play” were pricey failures. What’s the answer?

Bay: I always start with a question. How do you get someone to commit to leaving their house and going to the theater, when they’ve got all this stuff on the internet, and social networks. That’s why these event movies are working in this climate. I don’t know the answer, but sometimes I hear about movies they’re making and say, “How is that going to get someone out of the house?” I’ve got some small projects and several big stars are talking about working with me. But I have to focus on one thing and move on. I cannot have nine balls in the air, which Steven does so well.

BFD: What has been the biggest benefit of being in Spielberg’s orbit?

Bay: The benefit of being in both Steven and Jerry Bruckheimer’s orbit is they are such sage advisors. They’ve taught me so much about the business and been supportive as they allowed me to do my thing. It’s fascinating for me to remember being a kid and seeing “Top Gun” and saying, “I’ve got to do this,” and seeing “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and saying, “I’ve got to do this.” Now, those two guys are like my big brothers. You could see on that email how I invoked Jerry.

BFD: Dramas are hurting. What else do you fear about this business?

Bay: Piracy. It’s going to be the death. I look in the eyes of these interviewers. There was one of them, maybe in Norway, and this guy looks me in the eye and says, “Don’t you think piracy is about sharing?” I say, no, it’s about stealing. They really believe they are sharing, and it is like really lightning fire. Somehow, the studios are going to have to get dirty and fight back.

BFD: How?

Bay: If you wanted to get dirty, you can get dirty. You can implant things in their systems. You can get nasty. This stealing is growing on a worldwide level, very quickly. It’s exploding. This is my biggest concern and it’s something we’re not really addressing effectively. In several years, it’s really going to hurt us. Not the theater experience, but the ancillaries.

BFD: Is it creating the DVD shortfalls that have studios changing the way they make deals?

Bay: Some of that is just posturing, trying to fake everyone out and make better deals for the studios. “Transformers” is going to sell plenty of DVDs. But the idea that these pirates can somehow get a print that’s a good copy, that’s where payola starts and where the crime world can get into it.

Source: Variety

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Paramount's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is on its way to scoring one of the top five-day openings of all time at the worldwide box office.

The film's opening-day bow of $60.6 million from 4,234 runs at the domestic box office was the best ever for a Wednesday release and the second best of all time after that of "The Dark Knight" ($67.2 million).

Early estimates for Thursday show "Transformers 2" grossing another $27 million, bringing the two-day domestic cume to a bfo $87 million.

Overseas, sequel's cume through Wednesday was a whopping $59 million from 11,500 locations in 58 territories Wednesday, putting the worldwide tally at a hefty $146.6 million.

Foreign total includes early grosses from the U.K. and Japan, where the film opened over the weekend. "Revenge of the Fallen" opened day and date virtually everywhere else on Wednesday. Pic hasn't opened in India or Italy.

"This is the best opening number I can ever remember. It shows there is a huge fanbase for the movie. The audience loves the movie," Paramount prexy of international distribution Andrew Cripps said.

Directed by Michael Bay, the "Transformers" sequel has drawn poor reviews in the U.S., but that doesn't seem to be slowing down theater traffic, with out-of-school kids primed for an action tentpole.

Source: Variety

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This coming weekend could make Hollywood history for Michael Bay, the movie director behind the big-budget epics “Armageddon” and “Pearl Harbor.” His latest release, the $200 million action-adventure movie “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” is poised to possibly become the biggest opening in Hollywood history, with estimates that it could gross more than $200 million by Sunday’s end—rivaling the record-shattering totals for last summer’s “The Dark Knight.” But the 44-year-old director, who has a predilection for massive budgets and pyrotechnic explosions, has already set his sights on a radically new goal: making an art film.

The Wall Street Journal: This film features even more talking robots—based on the Hasbro toy line—than the first “Transformers.” Why add in more robots rather than humans?

Mr. Bay: That’s what fans wanted. The first film was really about us setting up the situation, and this movie is about us discovering what we could do better with that situation, how to make this most out of these special effects and these characters.

Did Hasbro force you to conform the aesthetics of the robots to match the style of its toy line? Did you have to make any compromises on characters for the sake of promoting Hasbro’s stable of pre-existing Transformers characters?

Not at all. I told [Hasbro] that I was going to do my own thing, and they really let me go off on the designs. They gave me carte blanche—it was pretty phenomenal. But I still listened to people who were in that world when they asked things like, ‘Can we make Optimus’s ears a little longer so he appears more in character?’ That’s easy to do. And a lot of the artists and people that we hired were fans of Transformers growing up, so having so many fans working on my crew really kept me on point. There are things that I invented—the creaky geriatric robot that is always grumpy, for example, or the little wheelie guy, he’s not in the Hasbro lore. But kids love that stuff—this little guy as a pet on a chain. They gravitate towards it.

Did you add testicles to the robots, too?

No, those are construction balls.

Uh-huh. So, now that you’ve finished the sequel of “Transformers,” are you ready to direct the third installment of the franchise?

I just want to take some time off. It’s been almost three years that I’ve devoted myself entirely to this world of robots. At some point, enough is enough—and I literally carried this movie on my back. I only finished it in the last week. It was a tough movie for me to finish—especially with the writers strike, the possible SAG strike. At one point, we were the only union movie in America shooting—Hollywood was so messed up from those two events.

So you don’t want to do another sequel?

I don’t know who [would] want to take on my shoes with this franchise. We might just take a year down.

What’s next for you, then?

I’ve been talking to some big actors right now about something that is totally different. A small dark comedy, a true story, with actors just acting, no effects. I’m done with effects movies for now. When you do a movie like “Transformers,” it can feel like you’re doing three movies at once—which is tiring.

It’s interesting that you want to focus on acting. Megan Fox, one of the leads in “Transformers” has criticized your films for being special-effects-driven and not offering so many acting opportunities. Do you agree?

Well, that’s Megan Fox for you. She says some very ridiculous things because she’s 23 years old and she still has a lot of growing to do. You roll your eyes when you see statements like that and think, “Okay Megan, you can do whatever you want. I got it.” But I 100% disagree with her. Nick Cage wasn’t a big actor when I cast him, nor was Ben Affleck before I put him in “Armageddon.” Shia LaBeouf wasn’t a big movie star before he did “Transformers”—and then he exploded. Not to mention Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, from “Bad Boys.” Nobody in the world knew about Megan Fox until I found her and put her in “Transformers.” I like to think that I’ve had some luck in building actors’ careers with my films.

With all the recent emphasis on 3D and technology in movies, do you think we’ll see some directors emerge out of the special effects houses?

Mr. Bay: People have come before from the special effects houses and have not done well. People can come from anywhere—but its really about telling stories. Either you’re born to do this or you’re not.

Speaking of effects, What about 3-D? Are you a fan? Will we watch the third “Transformers” movie in three dimensions?

I prefer the flat screen. 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?

You really shot all those scenes [in ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”] at the real pyramids?

One of the things that I pride myself on is that in situations where people say, “You can’t do that,” somehow I am always able to pull it off. I did it with “Pearl Harbor” and I did it with “Armageddon,” with the space shuttle, and luckily [Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities] Dr. Zahi Hawass, who runs the pyramids, was a fan of the first “Transformers”—so he let us film there, even though we’re the first film to do so in 30 years.

Those pyramids get pretty beat up in the film. Did they crumble during the filming?

The destruction is all effects. We were very, very careful. We didn’t break anything.

Source: WSJ

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Here are behind the scenes video’s of Michael M&M; ads.









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The 400 critics around the globe spoke. Then fans around the world spoke.

Transformers made $60.6 million dollars in the United States for a total of around $100 million from the world on opening day! One of the biggest single days in movie history.

Then never seem to understand that I make movies for people to take a ride and escape.

To all the Transformer Fans - Thank You

Michael

http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5378

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Paramount's DreamWorks-produced action sequel "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" – screened for a receptive group of European exhibs at the Cinema Expo confab here earlier this week – rung up $60.6 million in its first day in domestic release.

Par released the early estimate of first-day boxoffice Thursday morning. The figure included more than $16 million from midnight Wednesday performances, as the 2 ½-hour, Michael Bay-helmed pic -- in which Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox reprise topliner roles -- seems well positioned to hit its projected $150 million-plus in opening-frame boxoffice through Sunday.’

Source: THR

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Nelson here...

TF2 made $16 million in just on the midnight showings alone.

Only The Dark Knight and Star Wars Ep. 3 have done such but they did it on a Thursday plus had the benefit opening earlier in the day.


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Nelson here...

The day has arrived. I’ll be seeing later today.

For now, discuss the movie here. And if you wish, you can also rate the movie at this link.


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Nelson here..

If there’s someone that can make computers go beyond their maximum (or at least try), it’s Michael.

Visual-effects supervisor Scott Farrar was in charge of turning Industrial Light & Magic's computers up to 11 to create the new characters and told reporters that the sequel features 40 new characters. That and the increased resolution of the characters for new IMAX footage nearly exhausted ILM's render farms: After one hard night of rendering computer-generated footage, some of the hardware actually exploded.

Read the complete article at Sci-Fi Wire.


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Download hi-res here.



Download hi-res here.


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Click here to buy the Revenge of the Fallen score at iTunes.




Click here to buy the Revenge of the Fallen soundtrack at iTunes.


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Hundreds of tomorrow night’s midnight show times for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (debuting June 24 at 12:01 a.m.) are already sold out across the country. A few facts from Fandango below:

• Sold-out midnight show times (on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning) can be found all across the U.S.A., in cities such as New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Albuquerque, Denver, Houston, Nashville, Orlando, Colorado Springs, Tulsa, Fresno and Buford, Georgia.
• Exhibitors are continuing to add 3:45 a.m. or 4:00 a.m. show times on Wednesday morning to meet the fan demand.
• Currently, the film is selling twice as many tickets on Fandango as the original Transformers sold at the same point in that film’s sales cycle (two days before release date).
• The movie currently represents 87% of today’s ticket sales
• And as we noted yesterday, TF 2 showings at 500+ theaters in China are sold out 1.5 weeks in advanced.

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Nelson here...

Spoke to Mike a while ago, here are some tidbits.

• He hasn’t read any reviews (good or bad ones) or viewed at the Rotten Tomatoes meter.
• He will be having a TF2 premiere for the Pentagon later this week at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Imax.
• He will the visit Walter Reed Medical Center and visit our vets and troops.
• On a side note, the forest scene with four bots fighting was shot in New Mexico. I feel dumb not knowing NM has lush forests.
• And last but not least, 500+ theaters in Shanghai are sold out 1.5 weeks in advance for TF2. Click here to see Chinese TF fans show their Bumblebee love. (mirror and more photos)

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Back from Moscow. Fresh from a visit to the former KGB, with second in command. He told me in his office I'm one of 10 American's, one being a President, to ever be allowed inside what is now called the FSB. The only reason was he heard I was in town and he is a fan of my films.

Last night with my crew I saw the IMAX version. Once you get used to the giant format and your eyes adjust, it's an awesome experience. I have been waiting until the film was final to judge, and I'm really pleased. You have to make a point to see it this way - It could be the very best way to see Transformers.

C'mon guys critics? Give me a break. Do you all have short term memory? They killed the first one, and it still became a world-wide smash. I made this for the you, the audience!

Michael


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Transformers 2 opened spectacularly in their world debuts in the UK and Japan, grossing a total of $20 mil from 846 locations. The Michael Bay directed film was a clear #1 in both territories, with the UK’s opening total of $14.1 mil from 517 locations outperforming rival comic book sequel Spider-Man 2 by 18%, the original Transformers movie by 71% and coming within 3% of the Dark Knight weekend total. In Japan, the film’s gross of $5.8mn from 329 locations was 64% ahead of The Dark Knight, and only 13% behind Transformers which had the advantage of opening in summer school holidays.

The franchise’s eagerly awaited second instalment opens across most of the rest of the world next week on Wednesday June 24th.


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Nelson here...

In regards to some reports that Michael Bay is not having screenings for his crew, Michael says the following:

“They seem to want to know about my crew screenings. Not sure why the press is interested? We had 2500 crew members from many parts of the US and some in the Middle East and London. We have an IMAX crew screening Sunday night. We have an ILM screening Monday night and Paramount invited some of my key crew members to the LA premiere. I think Tuesday we are putting together a crew screening which is being planned at Paramount. Thursday we have an IMAX screening in Washington for the Pentagon people involved in the film. And we have one set up in Jordan. BTW the press is not invited.”


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By DAVE ITZKOFF

In its review of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” The Guardian calls its director, Michael Bay, “that prince of unsubtlety, royal rejecter of nuance and regal repudiator of light-and-shade,” and declares the film to be “another of his mega-decibel action headbangers.” Somewhere, we imagine Mr. Bay is smiling.

Over a career that includes the action movies “Bad Boys,” “The Rock,” “Armageddon” and the $700 million blockbuster “Transformers,” Mr. Bay has consistently confounded critics (and the occasional audience member), earning a place for himself in the immortal lyric from “Team America: World Police”: “I miss you more than Michael Bay missed the mark / when he made ‘Pearl Harbor.’”

None of which has stopped Mr. Bay from continuing to orchestrate colossal explosions on screen and at the box office. And he seems poised to do it again in his “Transformers” sequel (opening on Wednesday), which returns to the war between heroic Autobots like Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, and villainous Decepticons like Megatron.

In a feature in this weekend’s Arts & Leisure section, Mr. Bay talks about how he was persuaded to direct the “Transformers” films through the efforts of Hasbro, the toy company that makes the shape-shifting action figures. For a closer look at Mr. Bay’s essential Bay-ness, we offer these additional excerpts from our conversation with him, in which the director talks about his work on “Transformers” and his toughest critic: Mom.

Was it Steven Spielberg who first approached you about “Transformers”?
Yeah, literally, I was in my edit room and he said, I’d like you to direct “Transformers.” And I knew what it was, but instantly I thought, this sounds lame. I’m like, “O.K., great, great, great.” And I hung up the phone. And I’m like, “That sounds like a dumb idea.” It’s a true story. And that’s actually what a lot of studios thought. So I just went to Hasbro, and they told me, “We’re going to put you through Transformers school.” I go there, and they have this big conference table. They have like 20 people in the meeting, they’re all staring at me. And there’s one guy with these Transformer toys there, and he’s the folder- and un-folder-upper of Transformers toys. But behind them, I kept seeing these Japanese anime shots, and they were dark and moody. And I’ve always liked Japanese anime. It kind of hit me in the room, because I had read about Transformers and I was more interested in the lore of it. I couldn’t stomach the cartoons or anything like that.

It didn’t concern you that you were about to make a movie about a toy?
Here’s the thing: I don’t consider this a toy. It’s not. To me, it’s the farthest thing from it. It was about the mythology, and that there was a story here. The mythology is really deep, it goes 25 years back. And what I liked was, the code of the warrior. Optimus Prime had a lot of samurai things to him. I’m thinking, if I make this very real, and do something very real in terms of effects, then that might be very interesting. It was always about the boy and the car. And that was what Steven said, and I always liked that concept. It’s such a seminal moment in a kid’s life. That’s your sense of freedom and whatnot. There was just this image of a boy hiding this alien robot in his garage or his house or his backyard that just stuck with me. I’m thinking, O.K., that’s the heart and soul of the movie, for the first one. From there we kind of branched out.

So it was the narrative already contained in the toys that drew you in?
Right. But the thing was, you would think I would watch the movies and the cartoons. I couldn’t. I would get 10 minutes into the movie and I wanted to just shoot myself. O.K., I’m dead serious. And all these people on the Internet saying, “Michael Bay, you wrecked my childhood and blah blah blah.” I’m like, Are you kidding me? Your childhood couldn’t have been that great, watching those cartoons. [laughs] You’re remembering something a lot sweeter than it really was.

I realize it’s deeply uncool to admit this, but were there any toys you loved growing up?
I loved playing with toy soldiers. But I had just missed that window when the toy came out, when it wasn’t cool for me to play with dolls. And robots.

What kind of story were you trying to tell in the first “Transformers” film?
Literally, I wanted to see if this movie could even work. Early on we did this Scorponok sequence, to make it more real and vicious and dangerous, and to make these things more lethal. All my friends, when I’m doing movies, my buddies are like, “Are you kidding me? You’re doing that movie? What is that?” Everyone was saying that and I felt like such a jerk. I’m like, “Oh, my God, this is so risky.” I kept thinking: I can make this real. I can make you believe that they are actually here. I remember showing people a few images, we finally rendered them, with the Scorponok’s images and people instantly go, “I get it now.”

Isn’t that hurtful? You get picked on enough by critics – your friends ridicule your movies, too?
My friends keep me humble, which is good. These are guys that like to rag on you. You know what I mean? [laughs] What was shocking about “Transformers” was that, like, my mom – who will tell me, “I hate your movie” – “I loved this movie” – “That movie’s [expletive]” – “‘Bad Boys,’ they say too many swears.” I’ve cut [expletive] out many times for her. [laughs] She’s a very honest woman. And she goes, “I loved this movie. A little too much battle at the end, but I just loved that Bumblebee.”

Having proven that you could depict the robots on screen, how did you approach a “Transformers” sequel?
Instantly I was just thinking of ideas for what it could be. And then [screenwriters] Bob [Orci] and Alex [Kurtzman] had some ideas, and we loved the idea of now going to college, which is another marker in your life. And Ehren Kruger, another writer, had a really big movie idea. So we kind of spitballed ideas, and simultaneously I had a big art department, so we started drawing ideas and coming up with robots, stuff that hasn’t been invented by Hasbro. That was great about Hasbro. I said to them, “I’m going to do this my own way. I’ll vet it through you guys, but you’ve got to understand, I’m going to do a lot of stuff my way. And the toys are going to change. We’re going to make improvements on this stuff.”

What would be an example of a robot you modified?
Optimus Prime, we changed him a lot. We changed his facial stuff, the type of truck he was, the paint colors, the flames, which I got a lot of flak for. When we did the 3-D sculpting on a computer at ILM, 30 people are looking and I said, “This doesn’t look like Optimus Prime. Look at my drawing here, I want this drawing.” All of a sudden, this Japanese guy who barely speaks a lick of English – it’s the funniest meeting you’ve ever seen – he yells, in the meeting, “That is a insult to the Japanese people! That is not Optimus Prime! I want to do Optimus Prime!” Like, O.K. So he made some improvements. It’s interesting how so many people are attached to making one robot.

And you created other characters that weren’t established in the toys, the comics or the animation?
We wanted to get into the deeper lore of it. At one point, I’d already been shooting the movie, and we were doing this scene in space. And I asked these Hasbro experts on Transformers, I said, “So, how are Transformers born?” And they kind of – dead pause. “I don’t know.” “What do you mean, you don’t know? Isn’t that one of the first things you figure out?” [laughs] So I created how they’re born.

How are they born?
They’re in a special sac. They’re called hatchlings. It’s quite nice.

You’re helping to design all these nice new toys for Hasbro. Do you get a percentage of the toys they sell that are based on your designs?
Well, I’m not allowed to say. But things that come from my mind are now becoming toys. But it gets touched by all these artists. There was a woman on the Hollywood Foreign Press tour, and she goes, “Michael, don’t you ever want to do a movie that’s more artistic?” I knew what she meant, but there was a poster of Bumblebee behind me, and I said, “There’s something to be done with a movie in the south of France, whatever, at a winery or a vineyard. But when you look at Bumblebee behind you, it took so many artists so much time. This is something that doesn’t exist in our world. And it has emotions now.” That’s a whole skill. So it is art in its own way. The thing that Ridley Scott always says, and I totally concur with him, his favorite thing to do as a director is to create a new world. That’s just what I love to do.

But you find some artistic fulfillment in making these movies?
Absolutely. We were shooting in Salt, Jordan, and these kids all surrounded Bumblebee. And they were saying, “Bumblebee.” They knew. It’s another world and they know this character, they know this car. It’s pretty interesting when you see it through kids’ eyes.

Do you need to go off and do something completely different before you come back for “Transformers 3”?
Yes, I definitely need some distance and I definitely need to do another movie in between. It’s got to be something – not with a lot of digital effects. Because it takes so much time. I’ve got a lot of different possibilities, from dark comedy to something more serious. But I’m definitely trying to take some time off. The level of animation was so intense on this movie, compared to the last movie. I tell people it’s like making two movies. You shoot a live action movie and then you do the animation movie. Which goes on forever. Optimus Prime doesn’t just show up. It’s painstaking how you make him act. But now it’s, like, summertime, I guess. I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.

Source: NYTimes


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USAToday reports on the behind the scenes of Transformers Revenge of the Fallen:

There's a race to finish before sunset, but a craft services worker shows up with a pickup full of fresh pizzas. He is swarmed by the crew, until Bay hops off a golf cart he is steering and hollers: "Get those (expletive) pizzas the (expletive) out of here!"

Click here to read the entire article.


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Nelson here... in response to reports that Michael is done and wants nothing to do with Transformers, Michael says:

Hah, love press how they spin. Never said it - just wanted a vacation is more to the point. And no I don't read the good or the bad reviews.

Read it here.

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Source: The Guardian


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Robots

• 14 robots last time, 46 robots this time (ILM only)
• If you had all the gold ever mined in the history of man, you could build a little more than half of Devastator.
• Optimus Prime will be life size on IMAX screens in many forest fight shots.
• Devastator’s hand is traveling 390 miles per hour when he punches the pyramid.
• The pyramid destruction simulation was 8 times bigger than the old rigid simulation all-time record holder at ILM.
• All robot parts laid out end to end would stretch from one side of California to the other, about 180 miles
• Devastator’s parts stacked tip to tip would be as tall as 58 empire state buildings.
• If all the texture maps on the show were printed on 1 square yard sheets, they would cover 13 football fields.

Disk space

• TF1 took 20 Terabytes of disk space. Trans2 took 145 Terabytes. Seven times bigger!
• 145 terabytes would fill 35,000 DVDs. Stacked one on top of the other without storage cases, they would be 145 feet tall.

Rendering times

• If you rendered the entire movie on a modern home PC, you would have had to start the renders 16,000 years ago (when cave paintings like the Hall of Bulls were being made) to finish for this year’s premiere!
• A single imax shot in the movie (df250) would have taken almost 3 years to render on a top of the line home PC running nonstop.
• IMAX frame render times: As high as 72 hours per frame!

Imax

• Optimus Prime will be life size on IMAX screens in many forest fight shots.
• Imax frames take about 6 times longer than anamorphic to render.
• IMAX frame render times: As high as 72 hours per frame!

ILM screen time

ILM Screen Time is about 51 minutes.

Devastator

• Devastator is as tall as a 10 story building.
• Devastator has more than 10 times the number of individual parts found in an average car.
• Laid out end to end, Devastator’s parts would be almost 14 miles long.

Devastator totals

• Number of geom pieces: 52632
• The total number of polygons: 11,716,127
• The total length of all pieces: 73090 feet
• The total length of all pieces: 13.84 miles

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Nelson here...

According to the New Zealand Herald, Michael Bay has made it into the Guinness Book of World Records:

So ambitious are some of the scenes, that Bay has made it into the Guinness Book of Records for the biggest explosion on film with actors present. That shot was filmed in New Mexico.

Also form the article:

But the real star of the movie is director Michael Bay. Endowed with the swagger of a rock star, his reputation for grandiosity precedes him. Nonetheless, he is always entertaining in person, and boasts a resume that includes The Rock, Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys, and Armageddon, evidence of his penchant for blowing things up bigger and louder than anyone else. In short, to borrow from Spinal Tap, Bay turns the action up to 11.

In regard to filming on the Pyramids of Giza:

Outside of the US, the movie was shot in Paris, Jordan, and Cairo. "I take you to places that have never been shot in a movie. The top of Petra has never been put on film, period. King Abdullah II let us take 36 helicopter loads of military men up there. We were able to use a crane, so we take the viewer on aerial shots of the pyramid that even National Geographic never got permission to do," he says. "They've all tried," he says again, making his point. "When John Turturro was filming on the pyramid, he had a tear in his eye. I said, 'Why are you crying? What's going on?' He said, 'You just don't get to do this in movies. You don't get to shoot in a place that's 4000 years old."' So, how was the big shot from Hollywood able to convince Middle Eastern royalty to let him have his way? "Because I'm a smooth talker," he jokes. "No, seriously, the Prince and the King of Jordan were big fans of Transformers. That helped."

And security issues:

Security in the Middle East is obviously an issue, and consequently, arrangements for the cast had to be made. But according to Fox, it was Bay who required more security than any of the film's stars. "When we landed in Jordan or Egypt, Shia and I shared one car with the driver who was also the security guard. Michael's car was flanked by six other security vehicles to make sure he got to the hotel safely," she says. Now you can see why he's regarded as a rock star. Fox adds, "It was like they were driving the president."

Source: New Zealand Herald


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From Digital Spy:

The filmmaker told journalists at the press conference for Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen that he included Obama in the movie because of a brief meeting with the President.

Bay said: "The Obama thing? I met him in an airport where he was carrying his bag by himself and we talked about movies and apparently he likes my movies. So I figured we'll just put him in."

The director joked that he was able to include the up-to-date reference because he had only completed making the film last Wednesday.

Source: Digital Spy


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Michael Bay on the red carpet at the Transformers Revenge of the Fallen premiere.





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SANTA MONICA, Calif., June 15 /PRNewswire/ -- In an unprecedented post production collaboration, Company 3 recently conducted a unique transcontinental color grading session between its Santa Monica facility and Digital Garden, its Virtual Outpost location in Tokyo, for the new film Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

As Company 3 Founder/DI Colorist Stefan Sonnenfeld graded visual effects shots and other media in a DI Theatre in Santa Monica, Michael Bay, the film's director who was in Japan for the film's world premiere, was able to monitor the color grading work without any delay or color difference on a calibrated, high-resolution monitor -- and give feedback to Sonnenfeld via a video conferencing system.

"We've consistently taken the lead in developing new creative, technical and logistical options to better serve our clients," said Sonnenfeld. "The filmmakers we work with have incredibly busy schedules and we're committed to helping them accomplish their work in the most efficient and convenient way possible."

Although Company 3 frequently employs its proprietary remote collaboration technology for post production services on commercials, this marked the first time this technology was leveraged in Japan for a major feature film project with remote monitoring at 2K resolution. During the 90-minute session, Sonnenfeld graded more than a dozen visual effects shots which will be incorporated into the film for its U.S. release, as well as a series of television spots that premiered the following night during the national telecast of the NBA Finals.

"There was a lot riding on this remote session and Company 3 really came through -- they knocked it out of the park," said Mark Graziano, Senior Vice President of Post Production for DreamWorks, the producers of the film. "We got so much accomplished in a couple of hours -- enough in one session for Michael Bay to sign off on launching domestic negatives that would service the bulk of the domestic release."

"To watch Michael Bay in Japan and Stefan Sonnenfeld in L.A. work together through a high-end digital link was truly amazing," added Andrew Williams, VP of Marketing for Paramount Pictures. "It was almost like the Pacific Ocean disappeared and they were sitting right next to one another working seamlessly on the last few shots of the film. A true step forward on the digital technology front and a real treat for the few of us that got to watch it happen."

Digital Garden, the Tokyo facility receiving the remote color grading session, has collaborated with Company 3 on several commercial projects, but the monitoring requirements for a feature film are of a different order of magnitude and required special preparation. Several weeks prior to the session, Company 3 performed quality control sessions to assess the project's feasibility. Company 3 Engineer Rick Girardi then traveled to Japan to fine tune the calibration of the high resolution monitor.

Despite the complexities of the technology, the session proceeded very much as it would have had Bay and Sonnenfeld been in the same room. "Michael and I have worked on many projects together and have an excellent rapport," Sonnenfeld said. "The technology not only made it possible for us to work without being in the same physical space, it did so without getting in the way of the creative process."

Source: PRNewswire


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View more photos of the Transformers Revenge of the Fallen Berlin Premiere.


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LOS ANGELES, June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- With less than two weeks to go before its June 24 release date, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is already seeing brisk ticket sales on Fandango, the nation's leading moviegoer destination. Currently, the film represents 21% of ticket sales on Fandango (as of June 11 at 9 am PT).

According to an ongoing Fandango survey of moviegoers planning to see Transformers 2:

• 81% of respondents say Megan Fox is the one star they're most excited to see in the new movie.
• 76% say they are fans of director Michael Bay.
• 72% say the IMAX presentation of Transformers 2 will be an important part of their moviegoing experience.
• 71% of respondents are 18-34 years old; 68% are male.

"Fans are already scooping up tickets for Transformers 2's opening week showtimes, especially for the IMAX screens," says Ted Hong, Chief Marketing Officer for Fandango. "The movie is garnering some great Internet buzz, and filmgoers are clearly ready for another action-packed summer popcorn movie. With Transformers 2, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Ice Age 3, Public Enemies, Bruno, G.I. Joe and other highly-anticipated movies opening within a few weeks of each other, it looks like a banner year for the movies."

Source: Fandango


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Nelson here...

Koujin Ohno–who is credited with inventing Transformers as we now know them–gave Michael an Optmus Prime statue to show his appreciation with what Michael has done for the franchise.





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Click on the image below to see more of the TF2 Japanese premiere.





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Click here to view more photos of the Seoul premiere.


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Click on the photo below to watch more of the TF2 premiere.




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Nelson here...

Potter fans will have to wait their turn two extra weeks after the Half-Blood Prince premieres at the local cineplexes to see it on Imax. Why? Because Optimus Prime and company will be basking in the 4 week exclusive Imax limelight.

Fom the Hollywood Reporter:

It appears investors might have noticed Monday that "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" won't arrive at Imax venues until two weeks after the film opens on regular screens.

Shares of Imax dropped 4% on Monday to $7.31 after a Wall Street analyst said the delay "should negatively impact Imax boxoffice results."

"Prince" opens wide July 14. Although it opens on two Imax screens that day -- one in New York and one in Los Angeles -- it won't get the wide Imax treatment until July 29.

The two-week delay is fallout from the decision by Warner Bros. to push "Potter" from its originally scheduled November 2008 opening. The new July opening overlaps with Imax's monthlong window dedicated to Paramount's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen."

Still, "Potter" contains 12 minutes of 3-D footage that moviegoers can experience only through Imax, so that could cushion the blow, Merriman Curhan Ford analyst Eric Wold said.

"There will obviously be some consumers that choose to wait for the Imax version with its 3-D scenes or will choose to see it for a second time, but we no not believe this will be enough to offset the negative impact from the move," he said.

Source: THR

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Nelson here....

Michael and crew will be on an international press tour that will take them to about nine countries in the next two weeks. Here is a shot of them eating at Nobu in Tokyo.




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Hey everyone,

In Japan today. After a month and half seven days a week most days going till midnight me and my crew have just about finished Transformers. I have never seen such a level of dedication from every crew member in a movie before.

Even today after the press in Japan and right before the premiere tonight, I have to sneak out to a digital house to approve the last few effect shots.

It has been a long hard road, but really fun one to travel. What you will notice that is strikingly different than Transformers 1, is the level of animation detail. The robot characters (42 in all), you really can feel empathy for them. What is also very different is the sheer scale of the movie. We have been very tight holding back much of the best imagery in commercials and trailers.

The way to see this movie is on IMAX. Never before has there been 4k rendered character animation shot on full IMAX 70 mm film. This is a first and the results are stunning. You will see Optimus Prime in a few shots where he is actually perfectly to scale on the IMAX 50 foot tall screens.

For IMAX, I created a slightly longer cut with more robot fighting. Four scenes were shot on IMAX cameras so the screen will fill the full IMAX screen for these scenes.

Haters beware.

Michael


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Dorothy Pomerantz, 06.22.09, 12:00 AM ET




At the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the sun can burn your skin in a quarter of an hour. The film crew of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, who have turned this unearthly landscape into a partially destroyed Egyptian village, are covered head to toe in floppy hats, long-sleeved shirts and boots to protect themselves. But not director Michael Bay. He leaps around the set like a little kid, in a short-sleeved Polo shirt.

"Fire in the hole!" An explosion goes off next to a crumbling house. Bay grins approvingly and darts to some fake rocks where stars Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox are cowering in the face of yet another attack by robots from outer space. Over the course of the day Bay will film 63 shots, three times as many as on most sets. "I hear stories about directors waiting eight hours to shoot," says Bay. "How can your game plan be so screwed up? If I ran a studio, I'd fire your ass."

As well known for his blowups on the set as he is for explosions on the screen, Bay has made his share of enemies. One actor who worked as an extra on Pearl Harbor recalls how Bay accused another actor of thinking the attack on Pearl Harbor was funny when someone laughed after hours of sitting for a take. An executive says Bay got so enraged at an extra on the set of Transformers that he made him stand in a corner. Actress Kate Beckinsale told reporters Bay made her feel ugly on the set of Pearl Harbor. (Not true, says Bay. He asked her to work out more.) Bay is known for sometimes clashing with stars on the set, such as Bruce Willis in the 1998 film Armageddon. "He has a tendency to try to be a director and change actors' lines," says Bay. "I don't think Bruce liked that I had a pair of balls." He takes a similarly defensive stand toward the critics who have called his films "vile," "brain dead" and "pandering."

But audiences love him. Bay's seven movies have pulled in $2.6 billion at the box office, putting him in the same league with James Cameron ($3 billion, including Titanic, the highest-grossing film ever, at $1.8 billion). That means something at a time when the movie business is going through its own action thriller, as studios run low on capital and people stop buying DVDs. (Although theaters keep half of ticket sales, the gross amount is a good proxy for the movie owner's total revenue, which includes DVDs and other money streams.)

Bay brings his movies in on time and on budget, a rarity in Hollywood. Because his pay is largely based on the film's profits (usually one-third of the take after the studio recoups its production and advertising costs), he's got plenty of incentive to rein in expenses. "Michael makes me look good because he counts every penny," says Jerry Bruckheimer, who has produced five of Bay's films.

The new Transformers movie (the second full-length feature in the series) cost $195 million to make. But Bay estimates it would have cost $10 million more if he hadn't partnered with General Motors and the U.S. military to get free cars, helicopters and battleships. By keeping the budget (relatively) low on the first Transformers flick, in 2007, he was able to increase his share of the movie's $708 million worldwide gross, earning $80 million from the film. So what if those product placements make his movies look like long commercials? "People say it's whoring out, but it's not," says Bay, 44. "Advertising is in our lives. It's unavoidable. To think you can't have it in a movie isn't real life."

One of his first jobs out of school (he majored in film and English at Wesleyan University) was directing commercials. By the time he was 26 Bay had created ads for Coke, Levi's and Budweiser and a memorable Chevy ad showing a new line of cars being released into the wild. He learned everything on the job--rigging lights, focusing a lens, ordering around big egos like the professional athletes he shot in his Nike ads.

Bruckheimer offered Bay his first directing job in 1994 on Bad Boys, a movie about two Miami cops chasing drug thieves. A great break, except the script was so bad that Bruckheimer's partner, Don Simpson, threatened to take their names off the movie before the first shot. Bay sat down with his stars, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, and hammered out some bits to make the movie funnier and started shooting. "We had no support from the studio," says Bay in his airy Santa Monica office. "I wanted to make it exciting enough that it would make its money back." In one of the last scenes, Smith was supposed to punch out the bad guy. But the day of the shoot was rained out, and there wasn't enough money to bring back the crew. So Bay put up $25,000 of his $125,000 fee to shoot the scene. The movie, made for $20 million or so, went on to bring in $140 million at the box office globally.

"I didn't get points on that," says Bay, referring to the chunk of the profits big players get from a movie. "I had to beg to even get my [$25,000] back." The experience made Bay smarter about negotiating deals. He took fees on his next two films, The Rock and Armageddon, but by 2000 he decided he wanted to be more than a director for hire and insisted on part ownership. For Pearl Harbor, a $140 million (production cost) movie, he declined upfront pay in favor of a 50% split of what remained after the studio recouped production and advertising costs. The film grossed $450 million; Bay pocketed $40 million. He leaned on the military, saving untold millions by using World War II-era aircraft carriers and battleships.

On the Transformers set in New Mexico, a handful of military personnel stand by at all times to help Bay strategize his attack scenes. "We need to see a commitment from the filmmaker that it's going to look real," says Lieutenant Colonel Gregory Bishop, the U.S. Army's entertainment liaison. "Fighting alien robots isn't realistic, but if we did fight alien robots, this is the way we'd do it." Bay's deal: free tanks, Humvees and rocket launchers as long as they're being used in training exercises. If soldiers are training on an Apache helicopter, Bay can film it for free. Because the Transformer robots turn into cars, Bay was also able to get freebies from GM--as he had earlier, when the auto company contributed flood-damaged cars for Bad Boys. "I gave them glorious deaths," says the director.

Bay has developed an equally strong relationship with Hasbro, the maker of Transformer toys. At first Bay wasn't sure about the idea: Would it be live action? Animation? What about fans who were sure to criticize every little decision? He was convinced by a trip to Hasbro headquarters in Rhode Island, where he was educated in the complicated mythology of the battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons. "He had this idea that everything is more than meets the eye," says Brian Goldner, Hasbro's chief executive. "You could look at almost any vehicle and believe there's a sentient being under there." Bay certainly believed the payback. His deal with Hasbro is second only to that of George Lucas, who gets an estimated 15% royalty on all Star Wars figures. Bay gets an estimated 8% on Transformer toys tied to movies.

He has also brought his common touch to small horror movies and, soon, videogames. In 2003 he launched Platinum Dunes, a production company that specializes in revamping 1970s classics like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Amityville Horror. Bay hires young directors, who make the films for under $20 million each. Most earn back their budgets on opening weekend. As the producer, Bay gets an average 8% of the studio's net on each film.

Then there's Digital Domain, a visual-effects house started by James Cameron that Bay bought in 2007 with his business partner, John Textor. The company had fallen on hard times because of executive infighting, so they were able to pick it up for $35 million. Textor hired several effects wizards from George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic with the idea of producing superrealistic videogames. Digital Domain broke new ground last year with the Oscar-winning special effects in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Bay sees a day when videogames will be stored on servers, instead of played on home consoles, to offer theater-quality visual effects. "The game companies want directors to work for them, but they don't want to pay them," he complains. "We want to make it more like a movie studio--where everyone gets a piece of the action." That's how to get more action.

Source: Forbes


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Nelson here...

Here are wallpapers for your computer courtesy of the LG Nest site.









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