Michael Bay

Please add your comments about Michael Bay on the Fightback. If you don't have an account to post there, let me know and I'll get you one.

I don't think I like Bay at all. For one, his filmmaking is, at best, deeply flawed but, beyond that, he's always issuing frustrating statements, retracting them, revising them, showing all the signs of somebody who doesn't know what he's talking about or, possibly, changes his opinion for money or to curry favour.

Having yesterday whipped up a small publicty storm with his comments about Blu-ray, HD-DVD and Transformers 2, he's now retracted the comments completely. Nikki Finke reported the story but added nothing we couldn't tell from Bay's original statement. Hopefully she'll now get her investigative journalism groove on and find out just what really changed Bay's mind.

Or, to put it another way, did somebody write a cheque, and if so, how big was it?

To somebody with Finke's rolodex it shouldn't take too much digging to find out if Bay was already contracted to Transformer sequels, and what it would have meant for him to pull out, and therefore very possibly reveal his initial threat to be a paper tiger anyway.

Here's Bay's latests statement:

Last night at dinner I was having dinner with three Blu-Ray owners, they were pissed about no Transformers Blu-Ray and I drank the kool aid hook line and sinker. So at 1:30 in the morning I posted - nothing good ever comes out of early am posts mind you - I over reacted. I heard where Paramount is coming from and the future of HD and players that will be close to the $200 mark which is the magic number. I like what I heard.

As a director, I'm all about people seeing films in the best quality possible, and I saw and heard firsthand people upset about a corporate decision.

So today I saw 300 on HD-DVD, it rocks!

So I think I might be back on to do Transformers 2!

So, basically, he made an uninformed decision in the first place. No surprises there. Then he posted rashly - "possibly" under some kind of chemical influence. Again, no surprises. Then the world jumped up and down for a bit and HD-DVD got some negative press and, before you know it, Bay's eating his hat and turning 180 degrees. Once more - not really any surprises there either.

I feel quite daft for not predicting all of this yesterday.

Every single statement out of Bay's official site has been an incredible frustration to me. Why is this man one of the most sought after and highly paid film directors in the world? What people think when they hear his name has nothing to do with his individual, specific capabilities or techniques as a filmmaker anyway. What they picture is a big budget action film that emphasises spectacle and excess over anything else. We'd get the same rubbish if somebody decided to bankroll Albert Pyun and surround him with slick technicians too. Bay brings nothing to his films that countless direct-to-DVD hacks wouldn't bring too if they were given the resources and collaborators that Bay has.

But his name means something to people, so he's going to keep getting gigs and big ones too. Adding that brand value is so much more of a concern to studios than getting the best filmmaker for the job. This isn't news, I know, but it is the heart of the Michael Bay problem and after another twelve hours or so of Bay showing his behind, I just had to get it off my chest.

Michael Bay Joins Spielberg In Undermining The Paramount HD-DVD Decision

Something tells me that Transformers is to get a Blu-ray release despite Paramount's recent shirking of the format.

Michael Bay has issued a statement on his forums that he's not going to direct a second Transformers film because "I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For them to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks! They were progressive by having two formats. No Transformers 2 for me!"

Either he's saying that Blu-ray is the best format possible, which I'd go with, or he's pegging both HD-DVD and Blu-ray as equally reasonable options, which I'm cool with too, I suppose.

I don't know how much enthusiasm a non-Bay Transformers 2 would garner in the net fanboy community, but on the other hand, I don't know how much of a draw Bay's name is to the man in the street. Besides, with the same superb support from ILM there's countless directors who could turn in a film of similar quality to the first and even a good handful who could do better.

Surely you have some ideas of who would be a better choice. Suggestions please.

[EDIT: Nikki Finke has written a piece on this too, but has sad no more than this post did in the first place. She doesn't even offer a link to the original Bay comment. But hopefully she'll make it something of a talking point? Can this end up working in Blu-ray's favour?]

Movie Minesweeper - The New Broom Edition

- Luis Tosar is to star in Spleen, from first time director Alfonso Zarauzer.

- Don Murphy had posted a response to Michael Bay on his own site, but now... it's gone. From memory: Murphy commented on how he and Tom De Santo had nurtured the Transformers project for years before Bay's involvement; he credited Bay for making the film such a success; he stressed how good he felt the film was. Where's the comment gone? And why? And how true is it that Murphy is 'widely reviled by executives at Paramount and Dreamworks', as reported in The NYTimes? [EDIT: An old statement has been re-linked by Murphy]

- Alex de la Iglesia going to write and direct the film adaptation of The Yellow Mark, a story from the Blake and Mortimer comic book.

- The Icelandic media seem to believe location scouts for the new Star Trek film have come knocking.

- Richard Corliss has published a paen to animation in Time. Might seem a little naive to actual animation fans.

Movie Minesweeper - The Application Note Edition

- Merrick discusses the script for the Escape From New York remake at Aint ItCool and makes it sounds utterly redundant, witless and insulting. I'm not sure he agrees, though.

- According to Michael Bay, on his official site, Tom De Santo was barely involved in the creative process behind Transformers and 'treated the set like a theme park' and Don Murphy trashed the script and made Michael 'and the writers feel like a big sh*t pile'. You have to wonder how trustworthy Bay's reportage is - he's been caught out barefaced lying before now.

- Milos Forman isn't directing an Amarillo Slim biopic.

- Kevin Costner is producing The Explorer's Club, a web series that will be animated by the Chiodo brothers.

- WorstPreviews have a picture they claim is from the set of The Wolf Man but... I'm not sure. Yet. Trust me: I like the idea of Mark Romanek being on set, making a new feature film, but my information had this one still in pre-production.

- Director Yam Larans had announced the female lead of his film The Echo on his blog but, curiously, the post disappeared. It's Amelia Warner - maybe he shouldn't have revealed this but, er... too late. The cat is out of the bag.

- Don Bluth has discussed his entire career in a new interview.

Direct Download Link For New Transformers Commercial

Get a big look at a very vivid transformation now. Forget Michael Bay, forget the original Transformers toys and toons, the really attractive ingredient in this film are the CG shape-shifts. We can only imagine how awesome, and how tactile looking, a stop-motion animated version would have been but ILM are doing incredibly good work here.

Nobody Goes To The Transformers Junket In Korea

Speaking English, carrying a camera and being economical with the truth was all it took for one message board user to get himself into the Korean Transformers press junket. And with the same fractured grammar, let alone words, that litter forums, chatrooms and sms worldwide, they've told all.

Some pretty clear pictures of the big fakey Bumblebee, anyway.

Beverly Hills Cop 4

ComingSoon had Lorenza di Bonaventura over for a cuppa and a nice chat, and between bicies, he revealed plans for a fourth Beverly Hills Cop film.

The first Cop was initially intended to be a Sylvester Stallone vehicle and just days before shooting, Stallone was out and Murphy was in. The changes were many and sometimes massive - though not always entirely necessary. Downgrading the love interest to a friend to avoid interracial romance was probably not a good idea, in the grand scheme of things - I doubt it even had much of an impact on the box office which was, of course, the motivation.

If I can trust my memory, Beverly Hills Cop 2 is truly woeful, even for an 80's-spun sequel. The consensus is that 3 is the worst of all, but I certainly don't remember it that way. 3 might be utterly redundant, occasionally a little desperate and, overall, insultingly formulaic but you can level every one of those claims at 2, too. At least 3 winks at the audience a little (which is a love-it-or-hate thing, I suppose), and it does seem much more attuned to Eddie Murphy's stage personality. Indeed, 2 seemed more like a Stallone film than the first did - and I wonder if some of the supporting cast are in place to acknowledge this, somehow.

A fourth Beverly Hills Cop could be a very good idea. Things have changed enough that there's new things to say, a new world to portray, and some old attitudes that won't go away and still need attention. The script would need to be founded on some realistic ideas of where Axel Foley would be these days, and how his life would have shaken out, but the appeal of Eddie Murphy in the first place could be recaptured if Eddie plays along and allows Axel to be a realistic, three-dimensional character and not bent out of shape by fear or ego (where the character in the first film was compromised by the producers and studio - pre-empting racism on the part of the audience - the threat this time could be Murphy himself).

Between wild promises of countless curious projects, Tarantino has expressed interest in making a Beverly Hills Cop sequel, and he'd be a wonderful choice. Murphy is about to collaborate with Brett Ratner - let's hope that doesn't prove to be a preface to a Cop team-up. Michael Bay would be a bad idea too, I think, as would Tim Story - even thought they seem like possible 'fanboy' choices. Some might even suggest Kevin Smith, but that idea positively reeks of development hell and those ever decreasing Fletch Won circles of struggle, delay and, ultimately, abandonment.

Add your ideas in the comments, if you wish, but I certainly wouldn't be offended by any of the following contenders: Ron Shelton, James Foley (no relation), Joseph Ruben, Robert Townsend, John Landis (again), John Dahl. Some of these may have patchy resumes, but they've shown, somewhere along the line that they can do it, and that they've a suitable outlook for Cop. What's more - they're not wildly unlikely choices for the jump-start episode of a long stagnant franchise. More immediately, though, there's going to have to be a script...

Direct Download Link For That Transformers Tune Everybody's Talking About...

...except me.

Suit yourselves.

Direct Download Links For Five New Transformers Clips

Download clip one, two, three, four or five right now. The clips are hosted by the advertising site for the GM tie-in cars.

I've Lost Count Of The Transformers Clips, Trailers And TV Spots

Have I given you direct download links to the new Transformers trailer yet? If not, here they are - in low, medium and high resolution. They're all starting to look more or less the same.

How about the fifth TV spot? I've got a nice copy here and am looking for somewhere good to host it. And I don't mean YouTube.

In the meantime, it is available from FileFactory. If you can offer a more user-friendly, preferably directly-linkable home for the clip, please let me know.

Direct Download Link For New Transformers TV Spot

Robots, largely not in disguise. Download them.

Want To See Transformers Early?

Michael Bay has launched a campaign to get Transformers released on July 3rd, not 4th. Or that's what he claims is going on. I'll go out on a limb and guess that the decision has already been made and this is a little trick, a piece of internet sleight of hand, to convince the geek masses that their opinion counts for something.

Haven't plane bound snakes, death proofed cars, slithering aliens and embittered space cowboys in natty brown coats pretty much proven that it doesn't already?

Direct Download Link For The Dutch Transformers Trailer With New Footage

You can download the Dutch Transformers trailer now, should you so wish. It is in FLV format,
but if you're a trailer hound and haven't downloaded an FLV player already...

Direct Download Links For New Transformers Trailer

The latest Transformers trailer is available for download in 1080p, 720p and 480p hi-def Quicktime. Rename it something.mov if you want it to work.

Hobbit Hit List

Aint it Cool are reporting that, behind Sam Raimi and Peter Weir in the queue are four more potential Hobbit directors: Stephen Sommers, Michael Bay, Brad Silberling and Bill Condon.

Er... what on earth? Only Silberling seems anything like a sensible choice. At all.

Bruce Willis In The Geekosphere

I don't know if you've been following the conversation between Bruce Willis and the Talkbackers (ie; geeks a bit like me and maybe you) over at Aint it Cool. The short story is, basically, he's talking up Die Hard 4.0, even in its PG-13 version.

At first he was pretty much anonymous, posting as Walter B. Then Harry's Gang outed him, marked all of his posts with big black boxes and even set up another Talkback specifically for people to address him directly.

Some of his stuff has been priceless. Here are some excerpts:

This episode if Die Hard is as good, if not better than the first Movie. And I was there for that one too. In a Summer filled with CG/fantasy driven films, Live Free or Die Hard is an in-your-face, hard-ass Action movie that will satisfy Vern, and anyone else who is a fan of the Die Hard series. All PG-13 means is that you cannot say f*ck more than twice. Other than that, the Mythology of Die Hard lives....

Since they have existed, I always said the first Die Hard was the only good one. I will go on record here as saying that Live Free or Die Hard is better than the first one.

[Michael] Bay would have ruined DH4. Few people will work with him now, and I know I will never work with him again.

I had a website up for a while, I shut it down for an indefinite period, but now, getting ready to launch the longest shot of my careeer, I feel a strong personal pull to hear from an audience I do not know, sans Bullsh*t,(And that means I tell the Truth), sans gossip, just the straight, tight sh*t. I would personally hope it might be more about my work, good and bad, just us.

Takagi would still have his brains blown out had he been in DH4. Perhaps with a bit less gore, but we have some kills in DH4 that will still rock your *ss.

beedub/MaF*ckin'Clane/Walter B and proofreading is for pussies.... All I can say is that I will do what I can to remain comprehensible.

other than the 5 year old character of Lucy MaClane, who is now 26, there are no cameos from the 3 previous Die Hards. Thanks BW

If you need swearing to make you happy at the movies, there are plenty of those out there. But if you want a new action movie that will rock you, go see LF or DH.

That's enough. Go hunting for more, if you're still curious. It is quite fascinating stuff, really.

I left a question myself. I hope it gets answered. It will be interesting to compare the response to the question, and ultimately the film that is released. It reads: Hi, Bruce So can you please attest to the quality of Die Hard 4.0's storytelling? Are there many plot holes? Contrivances? Superfluous coincidences? Do the characters stay in character? Do the plot twists play fair? Basically, can you tell us that the film is well structured, properly constructed and, generally well put together? And how is Wiseman with screen geography these days?

I'm hoping some other filmmakers follow this lead. There's plenty out there I'd have some serious questions for.

Gemini Man

I really rather hated the Wolverine script by David Benioff, possibly rewritten by David Ayer. If I was sure, absolutely, that the blame was all Benioff's, that Ayer wasn't accountable, even the cautious interest I had in Gemini Man would evaporate. All the same, Benioff was at least partly responsible and his other scripts - particularly for Troy - have left me shaking my head...

As announced today, Benioff is doing a page-one write-over on Gemini Man for Walt Disney. Don Murphy, Chad Oman and Mike Stenson will executive produce, Jerry Bruckheimer will produce. Obvious choice Michael Bay is probably going to be busy with Prince of Persia and a second Transformers, so I've no idea who they'll rope in to direct this one.

The film's premise isn't a bad one at all: a once-great hitman comes face to face with his younger, fitter clone. Sage wisdom and 20/20 hindsight are bound to afford him the winning edge, wouldn't you expect? I see a better resolution - one as resonant as the basic premise, I think - but I'll be dashed on the rocks before I post it here.

Fake Transformers Review From A Plant

A Transformers test screening review appeared on Aint it Cool a few days ago. Even at the time it was a lot of fun - it seemed to show up Michael Bay's lies about the Prime lips coming from 'European test shots' in such a way that he'd simply have to be embarrassed. Now, though, I've found that it was written by a plant - and that makes it very interesting indeed.

I looked back through the review and sniffed out any criticisms. Knowing that a plant had written this, I'm now entirely confident that all of these 'issues' are the things that will be changed before release, things that it would be safe to knock because they'll be answered in the release version. Of course, the rest of the review is blind praise - and very superficial blind praise, too.

I'll try and catalogue the 'criticisms' for you:

- The lips on Optimus Prime.
- Bumblebee speaks only through his radio, and that takes some getting used to (followed by 'but eventually, is actually funny' retraction).
- Some of the emotional rleationships are 'cheesy' - but the 'reviewer' then praises them for this.
-Though the reviewer 'could see why' he was initially disappointed that early scenes didn't give a full-on look at the robots.
- Frenzy's CG doesn't look entirely finished.
- Starscream should have had more screentime - used only as an excuse to say "I've got a fever and the only prescription is more Starscream".
- Many Decepticons are simply Autobot stomping fodder (but that's then dismissed as okay, as it's just like the 'toon)
- Some of the scenes were unscored, so they'll obviously seem better once the score is in place.

I wouldn't have read the piece again in a million years until I found out it was written by a plant. Now we know, it makes an interesting case study in how a plant review pretends to balance criticism with praise and tries to influence readers. Not very convincingly, as it happens.

All we really needed to know in order to suspect Transformers would be a load of shallow, dull hokum was that Michael Bay was directing. It will probably play very well to a home audience - perhaps nostalgiacs of a certain age, or eternal adolescents, those overgrown juveniles with arrested development of their critical faculties - but it will take a lot more than plant reviews like this one to convince everybody else.

Prime Lips

So, an Aint it Cool reader went to a test screening of Transformers and... Optimus Prime spoke with those lips everybody hates so much. That blows a hole in Michael Bay's lies from earlier in the week.

Bay's obviously phoney claim was that the lips shoot seen in the leaked commercial were the product of some 'tests' being carried out by 'the European studios'. What?!? What was he trying on there? He tried to treat the world as idiots, every last one of us - and, yep, the majority of people swallowed it.

Bay was getting what he wanted, and he was shamed into changing his course. The robots were going to have lips and now they aren't. This will cost. If there were practical lips on the prop bots, they're going to have to be digitally altered, but if not, at the very least, the facial animation for the robots is going to have to be rejigged.

Unless, of course, the cash to do so isn't forthcoming. In that case, the film will be released with lips and everybody will get to see what an absolutely bare-faced liar Bay is.

Foolish. And with winning decisions like these behind him, who knows what else Bay has in store for the tedious talking car-bots?

Direct Download Link For New Transformers TV Spot

There's obviously a mole at the Ant Farm trailer cutting house. They not long ago leaked an unfinished Spider-Man 3 trailer - then denied any involvement - and now a work-in-progress Transformers spot has leapt the wall. Excitingly, for the fans at least, this spot features Optimus Prime in some heavy smack-wallop action with something called bonecrusher, and, for the first time in the marketing materials seen so far, speaking. There's a still from the shot of him speaking below - isn't that ironic?

Okay, maybe not quite.

The various versions of it on YouTube and IESB and so on are bound to disappear quickly, but we can offer you a direct download link.

I can see boiling water being poured on the Ant Farm before long.