Bay, who once called 3D a “gimmick” (before Avatar came out) recently revealed in an interview on Starz that he’s been testing the process to see if it will work for Transformers 3:

It’s a process we’re testing with some Transformers scenes.  [And] how successful it is with my movie in terms of a lot of real stuff coming out of the frame, real dirt, real complicated little particles coming towards the lens, because hopefully that process will work. I’ve seen some tests that look great on other movies. I just want to see how it looks on my footage.

The way he puts it implies that he’s using the technology that converts 2D film to 3D — which James Cameron, for his part, recently declared was “not the right way to do it.”  Cameron prefers shooting from 3D from the get-go, using 3D cameras, but Bay has previously said that his shooting style doesn’t lend itself to be able to use the more fragile 3D tech.

So in other words, the current 3D phase consists of (1) some filmmakers denouncing some types of 3D, (2) some filmmakers not caring what kind of 3D they use, (3) some filmmakers not liking any kind of 3D, and (4) studios not caring as long as they turn everything into some kind of 3D because they can charge more for it.

But back to the original question: will Transformers 3 end up in 3D?  Bay usually ends up doing what the studio tells him to do, so…probably.

Source: Slashfilm

Unfortunately, it faces stiff competition: The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Star Trek, and Avatar are all also competing in the category.  And all four of those movies also showed up in the Sound Editing category, where Transformers was replaced by Pixar’s Up.

That doesn’t exactly give it the best chances.  In all likelihood, the award will go to Avatar in a sweep of technical awards.

But hey, it’s the Academy Awards — surprises happen.

Busy scouting - Chicago, Detroit, and Washington D.C. for Transformers last week. Things are going well. The script is feeling very different from the other two.

And, in quoting an L.A. Times article:

“There will be a nice crescendo ending,” Bay said. “It gets much more into the robot character. The last time you kind of met a few of the robots; this time you’re gonna get a much cooler landscape.”

Considering how disappointing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was, it’s nice to hear that the script is feeling “very different.”  Maybe this time they’re actually bothering to fashion a coherent film before filming begins.

It’s one of the seven movies in the running for Best Visual Effects, a category which will eventually have three nominees.  Its competition includes Avatar, District 9, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Star Trek, Terminator Salvation, and 2012.

If I had to guess, it’ll make the list with Avatar and District 9, with 2012 as a potential spoiler.

Additionally, ROTF was just nominated for the Cinema Audio Society’s awards, which usually match up pretty closely with Best Sound Mixing nominees.  Other contenders in that field include Avatar, District 9, Star Trek, and The Hurt Locker.

Since it’s in consideration for Sound Mixing, a Sound Editing nomination probably isn’t far off.  And finally, its song “New Divide” is one of the dozens in consideration for Best Song.

If you’re counting by what made the most money out of any movie released in 2009, Transformers 2 drops down to #2, replaced by — you guessed it — Avatar.  James Cameron’s flick is currently at $513 and rising, versus Transformers 2’s distant $402 million.  The third spot goes to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, with $301 million.  After that, there’s a good five movies ranging from $229-293 million.

But within the calendar year?  Avatar had only made $284 million by December 31st, so Transformers 2 still has it.

Empire Online got their hands on a clip from one of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’s special features, a breakdown of the Decepticon attack on a fleet of battleships and aircraft carriers.

In the clip, the narrator reveals that they actually did research to check how fast boats of that size can actually sink. Turns out it’s surprisingly fast — under twenty minutes for some. Check out the clip here.

Not just Visual Effects or Sound Editing, mind you.  It’ll probably be nominated for awards like that.  I’m talking the big guns: Best Picture and Best Director.  Yes, Paramount Pictures is suggesting that Michael Bay get an Oscar nomination.  Check it out for yourself at ParamountScreenings.com.

Why are they doing this?  I like to think it’s because Michael Bay sincerely believes that he deserves it.

In an article on The Playlist, they even show some For Your Consideration art:

I’m not sure if that’s fake or not.  It looks like a screen-capture of the Paramount Screenings site, but the artwork is from a fan-made poster.  Maybe they had it up originally but took it down when they realized.

That’s good news for Hollywood, where everyone is perpetually worried about falling DVD revenues (memo to Hollywood: it’s because of Blu-Ray, idiots).

A week later, the Blu-Ray and both DVD editions — a single-disc and a two-disc version — are all still among Amazon’s top twenty sellers in movies & TV (the Blu-Ray is on top at #3).

In other words, as the Hollywood Reporter said, the release was a nice “shot in the arm” for Paramount/DreamWorks.

The Scream Awards were held a couple of weeks ago in L.A., but they’re not airing until tonight.  If you want to catch Megan Fox and Isabel Lucas — both in attendance — check it out on Spike TV at 10 p.m.

As we reported the day after the event, Fox won Best Sci-Fi Actress and Lucas won Best Breakthrough Female Performance.  I hope that doesn’t ruin any surprises.

The segment starting at the two minute mark is my favorite.

Covering all the ancillary material is pretty much impossible: there’s just way too much of it.  But there’s this Bumblebee-centric Transformers comic book coming out for the holidays that seemed kind of cool.  I don’t know, maybe it’s because Bumblebee was the only Transformer in the movie who knew how to shut up.  (If only he taught Mudflap and Skids…)

Here’s an excerpt from the press release from Hasbro and IDW Publishing:

After the huge success of this summer’s blockbuster Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen movie from DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures, in association with Hasbro, IDW continues the excitement with TRANSFORMERS:BUMBLEBEE, an all-new, four-issue miniseries. Under license from Hasbro, IDW expands this fan-favorite character, as BUMBLEBEE finds himself between a rock and a hard place with his own friends.

Written by Zander Cannon with art by Chee, TRANSFORMERS: BUMBLEBEE spins out of events in the new ongoing TRANSFORMERS series. The miniseries picks up with BUMBLEBEE finding himself in an unfamiliar position after the CYBERTRON-shattering events of TRANSFORMERS #1. Chee and Guido Guidi will provide the covers.

It’s still the #1 film of the year by a margin of about $100 million; second is Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince with $300 million.

In an interview for the DVD release, screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (who are sitting out Transformers 3) talked about the film’s love-it-or-hate-it reactions:

Question: Did you expect the Transformers Sequel to be so divisive? People seemed to love it or hate it.

Orci: Yeah… Sequels are easy targets, and the film was undertaken under the pressure of the writer’s strike, it was bigger louder and longer than the first one.

Kurtzman: It’s very hard to gauge what’s going to work with people and what’s not going to work. Because what one person says is way too long, but my 12 year old cousin would say “I wish it was longer!” And so that totally confuses me, so I think that at the end of the day, Mchael (Bay – Director) has his rhythm and his pace and he can determine in the editing how long he wants the movie to be.

The two-disc special edition is available on Amazon for $22.99 — read all about the special features here.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen made a strong showing at the Scream Awards, which were held last night in L.A.

The annual awards show will air October 27th on Spike TV.

Megan Fox won the award for Best Sci-Fi Actress, and Isabel Lucas won the award for Best Breakout Female Performance.  Hey, it’s hard work seducing Shia LaBeouf and then turning into an evil robot.

For what seems like a relatively minor awards show, it was a pretty big event: Fox and Lucas were both there, as were folks like Harrison Ford, Johnny Depp, and Twilight’s Taylor Lautner.

Making a valiant effort to squash those rumors is a hilariously silly website called Gossip Cop.  Gossip Cop purports to be the anti-gossip blog by finding rumors and then proving them false.

The only problem is that they do this by asking publicists whether rumors are true or not.  Publicists, whose job it is to make everybody look good and drama-free, just say “no” or “we don’t know.”  Gossip Cop then publishes these denials as “exclusives.”

Their story on the Megan Fox rumor is as follows:

A new rumor claims Megan Fox faces the “distinct possibility” of a “gory death scene” in a third “Transformers” movie, thanks to her outspoken comments about how difficult she found working for director Michael Bay.

Perez Hilton and others are picking up an In Touch report that says Fox’s character might be killed off early in the next sequel and swapped with a new female lead. Supposedly, according to the magazine’s “source,” Bay is “very quietly looking for her replacement.”

Very quietly. So quiet, in fact, no one can confirm it’s actually happening. And you know why? Because a rep for Fox tells Gossip Cop the story is “not true.”

Gee, I’m so convinced.  Especially since there’s no script yet — according to Bay himself they’ve only “broken a story,” which means they vaguely know what the movie’s about, enough to start pre-production.

Memo to Gossip Cop: publishing a two-word denial from a publicist is not the same thing as debunking a rumor.  For now, I’ll assume that killing off Mikaela is something Michael Bay is still privately considering, even though he probably won’t, because that’s stupid — while Megan Fox might not be able to carry movies by herself (like Jennifer’s Body) she’s still a big draw in the Transformers franchise.

While they’re beginning to work on a Star Trek sequel, as previously reported they’re not doing Transformers 3.  So why is that?  Sci-Fi Squad has the answer:

Why have you decided not to be involved with Transformers 3?

Orci: We’ve been working on Transformers longer than I was in college. I feel like we have our degree in Transformers now.

Kurtzman: The franchise is so wonderful that it deserves to be fresh, all the time. We just felt like we’d given it a lot and didn’t have an insight for where to go with it next, and said, “You should do it right.”

Orci: The studio was nice to say, “Oh, yeah, if you guys want to come back then come back.” But, we never want to do that, unless we have an idea. We always think the best idea should win, and that means opening it up to everybody.

Aside from Star Trek 2, they’re also working on Cowboys & Aliens with Jon Favreau and Robert Downey, Jr.

After saying he wanted to wait three years before filming a third Transformers or suggesting that he might do a smaller movie called Pain and Gain before tackling another blockbuster, Michael Bay has unsurprisingly announced that he’s doing the exact opposite.  Transformers 3 will come out on July 1st, 2011 — not 2012 like he’d been saying.

For all of Bay’s bravado, he’s a hired gun who does what he’s told (albeit thanks to massive amounts of money).  Transformers 2 was the biggest movie of the summer, and if the studio wants a third one fast-tracked, they get what they want.

Bay posted the announcement himself at his official site, and managed to make fun of Megan Fox at the same time:

Well its official: We have a great Transformers 3 story. The release date is now July 1st 2011. Not 2012.

Today is Day One. This morning started with an ILM meeting for five hours in San Francisco. Currently I’m flying with writer Ehren Kruger to Rhode Island to talk to Hasbro about new characters.

P.S. Megan Fox, welcome back. I promise no alien robots will harm you in any way during the production of this motion picture. Please consult your Physician when working under my direction because some side effects can occur, such as mild dizziness, intense nausea, suicidal tendencies, depression, minor chest hair growth, random internal hemorrhaging and inability to sleep. As some directors may be hazardous to your health, please consult your Doctor to determine if this is right for you.

Pain and Gain is right after shooting of Trans 3.

As much as I ragged on Revenge of the Fallen for being really terrible, I liked the first Transformers a lot, and I think the franchise could be great again.  Do I trust Michael Bay?  No.  But I never did.  At this early stage, I have plenty of hope.

When I saw Revenge of the Fallen in theaters, there was actually a fairly big smattering of applause when she appeared like that.

Well, anyway, those shorts and tank top are being auctioned off.  Rich lonely creeps, your time has come!

For Immediate Release

Megan Fox-Sexiest Woman in the World-”Mikaela Banes” short shorts and tank top from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and a 17 foot screen-used Bumble Bee Autobot to hit the auction block!

16′ 10″, 3200 Pound Full-Scale Hero Bumblee Robot; Bumblebee Camaro; Original Optimus Prime CGI Head and all principal wardrobe worn by Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf are among over 100 Items from the Transformers Films To Be Offered October 8-9 By Profiles in History [...]

“Megan Fox has become the new sex symbol-anything worn by her is in great demand by collectors. Transformers made her a star and I expect her costumes to perform very well at auction. The 17-foot Bumblebee robot speaks for itself. It’s such an amazing spectacle and a pop culture icon that I expect bidders to go crazy,” said Joe Maddalena, president of Profiles in History.”

Find out more at Profiles in History.  What’s funniest about this is how blatantly creepy it is.  Why don’t they just auction off her thong?  I mean, I really want to meet the guy who spends thousands of dollars on a pair of short shorts worn by Megan Fox.

Badly.

It made $6.87 million this past weekend, worse than Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs ($30 million), The Informant ($10 million) and even the obviously-gonna-tank Love Happens ($8 million).

There are plenty of theories about why exactly this happened: it’s basically a story about female frenemies, which doesn’t appeal to guys, but it has Megan Fox in it, who might not appeal to girls.  It’s a high school story, and yet it’s rated R.  Sometimes horror and comedy don’t go well together.  And unlike all those popular horror movies about a female character being victimized by a male character, Jennifer’s Body has it the other way around, which may have put off some male audiences.

But the bottom line is that Megan Fox can’t open a film.

Movie stars open movies to big numbers even when they have more things going against them than what I just listed.  The Will Smith movie Seven Pounds still managed to make $70 million despite awful reviews and a marketing campaign that didn’t remotely explain even in basic terms what the movie was about.

But Will Smith’s a star.  He makes a superhero movie (Hancock), and it makes $215 million with bad reviews while playing in theaters next to The Dark Knight.  That’s star power.

How about a female star? Sandra Bullock’s All About Steve opened a few weeks ago to hands down the worst reviews of the year, and it still made over $14 million — double Jennifer’s Body.

I’m not saying Fox doesn’t have a career ahead of her.  George Clooney has an atrocious track record opening films on his own.  Take away the Ocean’s movies, and you have movies like Leatherheads (opened to only $12.6 million) and Michael Clayton (nominated for Best Picture and still failed to break even a $50 million total gross, for heaven’s sake).  But the Next Big Thing?  For now she’ll remain an Internet fascination.

Basically, Megan Fox said some mildly rude things about Michael Bay, then a bunch of other people said rude stuff about Megan Fox, and then…actually, let me just post a timeline for you:

1. On September 2nd, the L.A. Times picked up the story that in the September issue of Wonderland Magazine, Megan Fox was quoted as saying:

[Michael Bay] wants to create this insane, infamous mad-man reputation. He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is. So he’s a nightmare to work for but when you get him away from set, and he’s not in director mode, I kind of really enjoy his personality because he’s so awkward, so hopelessly awkward. He has no social skills at all. It’s endearing to watch him. He’s so vulnerable and fragile in real life and then on set, he’s a tyrant.

2. “Megan Fox compares Michael Bay to Hitler” becomes a pseudo-story in the days following, mentioned on sites like Deadline Hollywood and Entertainment Weekly.  From the latter on September 4th:

Yes, readers, the 23-year-old actress openly compared Michael Bay to the very definition of evil. Yep, she trash-talked the same person who helped make her career — the one she now seems hell-bent on squandering with her nonsensical rants. (Whatever you think of Bay and/or his movies, it’s a pretty ungracious move.)

3. On September 11th, “three Transformers crew members” post an anonymous open letter on Michael Bay’s own (fan-run) site blasting Fox and declaring their loyalty to Bay.  The letter is pulled down the next day, but contains gems like:

Yes, Megan has great eyes, a tight stomach we spray with glycerin, and an awful silly Marilyn Monroe tattoo plastered on her arm that we cover up to keep the moms happy.

Michael found this shy, inexperienced girl, plucked her out of total obscurity thus giving her the biggest shot of any young actresses’ life. He told everyone around to just trust him on his choice. He granted her the starring role in Transformers, a franchise that forever changed her life; she became one of the most googled and oogled women on earth. She was famous! She was the next Angelina Jolie, hooray! Wait a minute, two of us worked with Angelina – second thought – she’s no Angelina. You see, Angelia is a professional.

We know this quite intimately because we’ve had the tedious experience of working with the dumb-as-a-rock Megan Fox on both Transformers movies. We’ve spent a total of 12 months on set making these two movies.

We are in different departments; we can’t give our names because sadly doing so in Hollywood could lead to being banished from future Paramount work.

And:

[W]e have never understood why Megan was always such the grump of the set?

When facing the press, Megan is the queen of talking trailer trash and posing like a porn star. And yes we’ve had the unbearable time of watching her try to act on set, and yes, it’s very cringe-able. So maybe, being a porn star in the future might be a good career option. But make-up beware, she has a paragraph tattooed to her backside (probably due her rotten childhood) — easily another 45 minutes in the chair!

So when the three of us caught wind of Ms Fox, pontificating yet again in some publication (like she actually has something interesting to say) blabbing her trash mouth about a director whom we three have grown to really like. She compared working with Michael, to “working with Hitler”. We actually don’t think she knows who Hitler is by the way.

Wait, still not done:

And who is the real Megan Fox? She is very different than the academy nominee and winning actors we’ve all worked around. She’s as about ungracious a person as you can ever fathom. She shows little interest in the crew members around her. We work to make her look good in every way, but she’s absolutely never appreciative of anyone’s hard work. Never a thank you. All the crewmembers have stopped saying hi to Ms. Princess because she never says hello back. It gets tiring. Many think she just really hates the process of being an actress.

Megan has been late to the sets many times. She goes through the motions that make her exude this sense of misery. We’ve heard the A.D’s piped over the radio that Megan won’t walk from her trailer until John Turturro walks first! John’s done seventy-five movies and she’s made two!

Never expect Megan to attend any of the 15 or so crew parties like all the other actors have. And then there’s the classless night she blew off The Royal Prince of Jordan who made a special dinner for all the actors. She doesn’t know that one of the grips’ daughters wanted to visit their daddy’s work to meet Megan, but he wouldn’t let them come because he told them “she is not nice.”

The press certainly doesn’t know her most famous line. On our first day in Egypt, the Egyptian government wouldn’t let us shoot because of a permit problem as the actors got ready in make up at the Four Seasons Hotel. Michael tried to make the best of it; he wanted to take the cast and crew on a private tour of the famous Giza pyramids. God hold us witness, Megan said, “I can’t believe Michael is fucking forcing us to go to the fucking pyramids!” I guess this is the “Hitler guy” she is referring to.

So this is the Megan Fox you don’t get to see. Maybe she will learn, but we figure if she can sling insults, then she can take them too. Megan really is a thankless, classless, graceless, and shall we say unfriendly bitch.

4. The next day, on September 12th, Michael Bay stepped in and became — holy crap — the tactful voice of reason:

I don’t condone the crew letter to Megan. And I don’t condone Megan’s outlandish quotes. But her crazy quips are part of her crazy charm. The fact of the matter I still love working with her, and I know we still get along. I even expect more crazy quotes from her on Transformers 3.

5. On Tuesday, September 15th, a non-anonymous crew member, Anthony Steinhart, posted another open letter in order to clear his name and defend Fox:

First of all, I would like people to know (for those who are interested) the reason why I am writing this letter is to clear my name in any of this Ms. Fox bashing. As someone pointed out in one of the responses, you could narrow down the list of potential writers of the letter by looking on IMDB. I have received a few phone calls from people who have read the letter and they know that I have worked closely with the actors/actresses on the film, so I felt I should at least clear my name.

My name is Anthony Steinhart and I have worked on both Transformers movies and have had the pleasure of working with Ms. Fox.

I read the letter by the three unnamed crew people and was blown away by their description of Ms. Fox. Especially, since I am the one usually getting Ms. Fox at her trailer. I have personally never been nor ever witnessed Ms. Fox being rude or inconsiderate of people’s feelings or the work to be done. Everyone is entitled to their good days and bad. Contrary to popular belief, she is like us (human) and has both good and bad days as well. Working on the Transformers movies can be intense at times and sometimes intense situations cause intense moments.

Some of the examples the three unnamed writers give as evidence of Ms. Fox and her horrible attitude are so ridiculous.

It’s unfortunate the grip didn’t want to bring his daughter to set because Megan Fox wasn’t nice and not the fact that we had a closed to set. No visitors unless approved by the UPM [unit production manager]. That is what the call sheets have always said. By the way, Ms. Fox wished my 12-year-old brother a happy birthday over the phone while we were shooting in New Mexico. Not so heartless.

6. Finally, the same day, Fox released a short statement via her publicist:

I have spoken with the parties involved privately. I am very fortunate to be involved in this amazing franchise and look forward to Transformers 3.

And that’s it…so far, at least.

The one striking thing from the whole ordeal?  How childish some people can be.  The anonymous crew member letter was — aside from being horribly edited and reading like three high school dropouts got drunk and decided to write a letter — immature, sexist, and far more rude than anything Fox may or may not have done to them.

And I don’t even particularly like Megan Fox.  Or Michael Bay.  But Fox’s not-very-well-thought-out original comments aside, they’re behaving like the grown-ups in all of this.

I spoke to Michael today and he had a little update on his future projects:

• He will be meeting later this week with Steven Spielberg, and Ehren Kruger to discuss ideas for Transformers 3. By the end of the week he should have an idea if Transformers 3 will hit your local cineplex in the summer of 2011 or 2012.
• In the meantime “Pain & Gain” is looking very possible as is…
• …Bad Boys 3. Either film coming to a theater near you before or after Transformers 3.

What’s Pain & Gain? It’s a “small movie” that Bay had talked about doing before another Transformers, based on this lengthy article. Doesn’t really sound like a Michael Bay kind of a movie, but the man’s allowed to stretch, right? He might not be able to, but he’s allowed.

Ugh, never!  That’s the last thing I want to see — what I look like having sex. It would take one shot of me not looking good and I would not be able to have sex ever again, because I would always just see myself looking like a hippo having sex…I can’t ever imagine myself doing nudity in a film.  It lives forever, especially now, with the Internet. I just can’t. I just can’t.

Says the girl who once told Entertainment Weekly that when she was sixteen, “I was always übersexual…I was always wearing the smallest clothes I could find. I would go to the mall like that — in a short, short skirt and a giant wedge heel. That’s what you do when you’re a teenage girl in a small town.”  (Yeah, that’s what you do, Megan…if you’re a slutty teenage girl in a small town.)

But hey, whatever.  “One less reason to see Jennifer’s Body, I suppose,” Pretty-Scary says.  I agree.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was finally able to top the $400 million mark here at the U.S. box office, on September 5th — its 74th day of release.  Guess I was right. Paramount was quick to issue a press release:

HOLLYWOOD, CA (September 7, 2009) – Following its record smashing opening in late June, the worldwide hit “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” and now 9th biggest grossing film of all time, closed out the summer movie season with over $400 million earned at the U.S. box office.

“From its opening weekend, Transformers was defined by audiences as the must see movie of the season,” said Paramount Pictures Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Brad Grey. “Combined with the successes of ‘Star Trek’ and ‘G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra,’ the summer of 2009 was a great one for Paramount’s franchises.”

From director Michael Bay and executive producer Steven Spielberg, the Paramount Pictures sequel has earned more than $800 million worldwide, making it the highest grossing film of the year, and surpassing its predecessor by over a $100 million.

Battle: Los Angeles is being pitched as “Black Hawk Down meets Alien,” which I’m presuming means lots of massive battle scenes with slimy aliens.  Neat!

Rodriguez joins Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez, Michael Pena, and Bridget Moynahan.  It’s directed by Jonathan Liebesman, who so far is known for working in the horror genre with Darkness Falls and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.

Dont ask me why Lawrence got first billing.

Remember that embarrassing bit of narcissism from Revenge of the Fallen when you see the Bad Boys poster in Sam’s dorm room?  Apparently Michael Bay is more attached to the franchise than we realized, because suddenly they’re talking about a Bad Boys 3.

Before you get too excited — although if you actually love the first two Bad Boys movies enough to get really excited about this, I’d be mildly concerned — nothing’s for certain yet.  Between Bay, Jerry Bruckheimer, Will Smith, and Martin Lawrence, none of them have actual deals to return.

However, they’ve all said at one point or another they’d be open to the idea if the script was good, so Columbia Pictures has hired screenwriter Peter Craig (of the upcoming gangster movie The Town) to come up with something.

The original Bad Boys opened in 1995 and made a decent but not noteworthy $65.6 million.  It was Bay’s first movie and Will Smith’s third movie (and first action movie).  After they both became superstars in their respective careers, Bad Boys II came out in 2003 and made $138.4 million.  Martin Lawrence hasn’t done much since then (oh wait, how could I forget Big Momma’s House 2, Wild Hogs, and College Road Trip?) but Smith and Bay are still two of the top moneymakers in Hollywood.

Disc one features the movie along with a commentary track from Michael Bay and screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.

(Sample exchange from the commentary — Bay: “Hey, remember when I told you to write this scene, but I didn’t really like what you came up with, but you didn’t have time to rewrite it so I just shot a bunch of shit and stitched it together in the editing room?”  Orci: “Not really.  Actually, I don’t remember much.  You gave us a couple weeks to hammer out the script, and considering you were building the sets before we wrote anything, I just didn’t pay attention to what I was writing at all.”)

Disc 2 features all the extra goodies you’d expect:

The Human Factor: Exacting Revenge of the Fallen–This multi-chapter documentary chronicles the entire creation of the film and includes interviews with the cast and crew:

• Seeds of Vengeance - Development and Design - After the overwhelming success of 2007’s Transformers, how do the filmmakers top themselves for the sequel?
• Domestic Destruction - Production: United States - Michael Bay believes in going big: Big action and big explosions. Cast and crew are pushed to the limit as they traverse the U.S. from New Mexico to Pennsylvania.
• Joint Operations - Production: Military - No other filmmaker in the world enjoys the kind of military access and cooperation Michael Bay has. Here we see just how efficient our armed forces are and the awe and respect shown by the cast.
• Wonders of the World - Production: Middle East - You can’t really reproduce Egypt anywhere but Egypt so off we go to Giza and Luxor.
• Start Making Sense - Editing - In order to turn over the massive amount of film as quickly as possible to VFX, four editors work tirelessly in a unique tag-team approach to shape the film.
• Under the Gun - Visual Effects - Revenge of the Fallen features the most complicated VFX in film history. So complicated in fact that the filmmakers were unsure they would make the deadline. The DEVASTATOR VFX alone required 83% of ILM’s total render farm capacity.

Running the Gauntlet - Post-Production and Release - Working seven days a week, Michael Bay and company usher the film through sound design, Digital Intermediate color-timing and a globe-trotting whirlwind of premieres.

A Day with Bay: Tokyo–An intimate and fun all-access journey with Michael Bay as he travels to Tokyo, Japan for the world premiere of the biggest film of the year.

25 Years of TRANSFORMERS–Access an all-new featurette celebrating a monumental milestone for one of Hasbro’s most successful and popular franchises.

NEST: Transformer Data-Hub–Explore conceptual artwork created by the production for 12 of the most popular AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS from the film.

Deconstructing Visual Bayhem with Commentary by Pre-Vis Supervisor Steve Yamamoto– A series of multi-angle pre-visualization sequences allowing viewers to learn how some of the film’s most spectacular scenes were created with an introduction by Michael Bay.

Extended Scenes

Music Video: Linkin Park’s “New Divide”

Wow.  The question is, will anybody who liked Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen for the “hot babes and sick explosions” actually sit through all this?

There’s also some exclusive Blu-Ray content:

The ALLSPARK Experiment–Viewers get their chance to unleash the power of the recently recovered ALLSPARK shard on Earth vehicles. Begin by selecting and customizing a vehicle with a selection of parts and accessories. Then apply the ALLSPARK to this creation and watch what happens. Applying the ALLSPARK to certain custom combinations enables four new robot characters with special powers. If viewers discover all four, they unlock a fifth vehicle, which reveals a top secret message about the future of the TRANSFORMERS movie franchise.

NEST: Transformer Data-Hub–A database of some of the TRANSFORMERS characters that appear in the new film, offering users access to each robot’s confidential file including:

• Innovative 3D spin galleries of each robot
• A timeline for each TRANSFORMERS character charting its origins, back story and design evolution from toys to animated series to comics and finally feature films

Giant Effing Movie - A very personal look at the making of the movie.

The Matrix of Marketing–An archive of the film’s promotional media including trailers, posters and television spots.

In other words, in true Bay style, they’re definitely going all out.

Will it be able to break the $400 million mark?

Probably, but it’ll be close.  Transformers 2 has been dropping at an average of 40% each weekend.  During the Monday-Thursday period we’re in right now, it’ll make about $700K total, so if it makes $960K over the Friday-Sunday periods — a 40% drop from $1.6 million — it’ll finish the weekend with a new total of $398.35 million.  If it drops another 40% over the following week, it’ll make another million bucks, raising the total to $399.35.

And from there it can climb past the $400 million mark, right?  Depending on how fast it loses the theaters its playing in, it should have another $2-3 million in it or so, finishing out with around $402 million.  We’ll see how close I am to being correct, though.

I totally just outed myself as a math geek, didn’t I?

What do the two have in common?  Well, it’s more what they don’t: while they’re both sci-fi movies, Transformers is being considered as an example of trash sci-fi, while District 9 — like the Sam Rockwell indie Moon from earlier this summer — is being heralded as an example of intelligent sci-fi.

Like in FilmJunk’s “5 Reasons District 9 Will Be Better Than Transformers” article.  Their five reasons are:

-It’s subversive yet accessible.

-The FX is lower-budget but more inspired.

-It has low-key social commentary.

-It’s original.

-It was made by fresh, young talent.

The article is certainly correct on all counts, but it really doesn’t matter.  Because c’mon: Transformers 2 was actively trying to be as trashy as possible: Mudflap & Skids, the shots of Megan Fox, the Pretender, Jon Turturro…it was two and a half hours of Michael Bay stealing ten dollar bills from every member of the audience and throwing them into a massive, arguably entertaining bonfire of burning giant metal parts, laughing maniacally all the way.

They’re both movie franchises that are based on TV franchises that were created for the soul purpose of marketing Hasbro toys.  So why did Transformers tromp around this summer destroying other worthy films like Public Enemies at the box office, while G.I. Joe has gotten such a “meh” response?

That’s what Film School Rejects wants to know:

Really, I’m sick of hearing all the whining and bellyaching from everyone and their dog about G.I. Joe when it basically is going to amount to roughly the same style of movie as that big hit Transformers — so far as I can tell. It looks like it has plenty of action and guns going off, just like Transformers. It’s even based on Eighties action figures, made by Hasbro! Yet while people were oohing and aahing about Transformers 2 and trashing the nation’s critics for panning the movie, the reaction to G.I. Joe among the movie fans has been far different. I haven’t seen so much bellyaching in advance of a movie in a long, long time. People are saying of G.I. Joe that “it’s got action and violence and babes! It’s going to suck!” Of course, not too long ago the exact same people were saying of the Transformers sequel that “it’s got action and violence and babes! It’s going to be awesome!”

Then again, everybody has a different opinion of the two franchises.  Slashfilm reports a different experience:

“Better than Transformers 2″ seems to be the one sentence review quote I’ve heard over and over. But with Transformers 2 considered one of the worst reviewed blockbusters of all time, is that statement really saying much?

Are you planning on seeing G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra?  And if so, did you love or hate Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen?

He was mostly referring to the idea that the sequel won’t feature the Enterprise crew “refusing the call to adventure”, a traditional adventure movie plot point that’s been used not just in Transformers 2 but also Spider-Man 2, Superman 2, and The Dark Knight (they all wanted to quit, remember?).  But maybe if you want to read between the lines, he’s also saying that Star Trek 2 will be a little bit more thought-out than Revenge of the Fallen’s “make up a story to go along with action set pieces that are already being built and don’t bother with second drafts because we don’t have time” style of writing.

You can watch io9’s video with Orci here.

eek.

How do you know when you’re huge?  When all the websites who drool over you get so sick of mentioning you that they decide to take a day off.

In a really amusing story, DigitalSpy reports that a number of male entertainment sites like AskMen.com and JustaGuyThing.com have decided to swear off all Megan Fox references for one day, set for August 4th.

“You can have too much of a good thing,” AskMen.com editor James Bassil said. “We’re joining in the media blackout and giving our readers a one-day reprieve from the woman we’ve been drowning in all summer.”

Look, I like ogling over hot girls as much as everybody else, but the Fox obsession seems every bit as manufactured as anything Michael Bay has ever given us.  I understand it’s all a matter of opinion, but I for one can name ten girls hotter than Fox without breaking a sweat.

Don’t believe me?  Natalie Portman Keira Knightley Emilie de Ravin Mary-Louise Parker Angelina Jolie Rosario Dawson the hot girl from the RGX Body Spray commercials Adrianna Palicki Kristen Bell my girlfriend.

“Absolutely, it’s in motion,” he said. “Michael Bay, he definitely needs to take a break from (Transformers), understandably so, but this is the movie — the biggest movie he’s ever directed in his life, and so, he can keep producing all of these other projects, but he is officially the king of geeks.”

Yep, in general, Gibson seemed pretty happy to milk his cash cow as long as possible.  And why not?  “I will absolutely be back,” he said.  “And my part is going to be bumped up.”

Oh, you mean you won’t spend Transformers 3 standing in the background while your white partner gets all the lines?  About time.

After a month in theaters, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen has made a whopping $379.2 million.  That’s enough to land in the #10 spot for highest-grossing movies in the U.S. ever, knocking out The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King’s $377 million.

As the film is still running strong in theaters, it will probably end up in the #8 spot: under Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’s $423.3 million but above Spider-Man’s $403.7 million.

Keep in mind that this is only the U.S. list — in other countries, Revenge of the Fallen has made an additional $412 million for a $792 million worldwide gross.  (Ironically, it won’t knock out Return of the King’s worldwide gross, which is over a billion dollars.)

Also keep in mind that the list isn’t adjusted for inflation.  If you count the number of tickets sold, the #1 film of all time is…Gone with the Wind.  Yes, it’s true: big robots, hobbits, pirates, and superheroes apparently still can’t touch Civil War melodramas.  Lame?

Check out the full release for yourself:

After only 14-days in release, the worldwide hit “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” became the 2nd fastest film in movie history to earn $300 million in U.S. ticket sales, eclipsing the previous record-holder “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” by 2-days. From director Michael Bay and executive producer Steven Spielberg, the Paramount Pictures release trails only “The Dark Knight” in this record-setting achievement.

“Moviegoers everywhere propelled the film to this great success, paving the way for a phenomenal run” said Paramount Pictures Vice Chairman Rob Moore.

2007’s “Transformers” earned $319.2 million in its theatrical run, and more than $700 million worldwide. The sequel has already taken in over $600 million worldwide to date, conquering several records including:

•Biggest Wednesday-Sunday opening of all time.
•Biggest Wednesday opening of all time.
•Paramount’s biggest international opening of all time.
•3rd biggest worldwide opening weekend of all time.
•4th biggest international opening of all time.

Planning on seeing it again?  Not like it needs your help…

Critics: Transformers 2 is one of the worst movies of the year.

Fanboys: Critics suck! They want everything to be Oscar-worthy and independent and foreign and don’t like action movies!

Critics: That argument makes no sense at all, and you’re whining.  We weren’t expecting Revolutionary Road.  We just thought it sucked.

Fanboys: Of course it’s bad!  It doesn’t have to be good!  It just has to include hot chicks and giant fighting robots!  And it totally delivered on both counts!

Whose side are you on?  Well, you’re on a site called Transformers Movie Buzz, so I have a guess.  But still, I would recommend you read Roger Ebert’s intentionally-baiting blog post called “I’m a Proud Braniac“, if only to make you angry.  The highlights:

Another common line of attack was disturbing. It came from people who said I was out of touch with the tastes of the audience. That the movie’s detractors (lumped together as “the critics”) like only obscure movies that nobody else does–art films, documentaries, foreign films, indies, movies made 50 years ago–even, God forbid, “classics.” One poster argued that “Transformers” was better than that boring old movie “Casablanca.”

I was informed I didn’t “get” Michael Bay. I was too old, “of the wrong generation,” [...] am I out of touch? It’s not a critic’s job to reflect box office taste. The job is to describe my reaction to a film, to account for it, and evoke it for others. The job of the reader is not to find his opinion applauded or seconded, but to evaluate another opinion against his own. But you know that. We’ve been over that ground many times. What disturbs me is when I’m specifically told that I know too much about movies, have “studied” them, go into them “too deep,” am always looking for things the average person doesn’t care about, am always mentioning things like editing or cinematography, and am forever comparing films to other films. [...]

It’s true that many Americans have an active suspicion and dislike of the “educated.” They ask, “what makes you an expert?” when they’re really asking, “what gives you the right to disagree with me?”

Those who think “Transformers” is a great or even a good film are, may I tactfully suggest, not sufficiently evolved. Film by film, I hope they climb a personal ladder into the realm of better films, until their standards improve. [...]

The opening grosses are a tribute to a marketing campaign, not to a movie no one had seen. If two studios spend a ton of money on a film, scare away the competition, and open in 4,234 theaters before the Fourth of July, of course they do blockbuster business.

What do you think of Ebert’s comments?  Or has the memory of Revenge of the Fallen already completely faded from your mind, save for that one lone shot of Megan Fox straddling the motorcycle?

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen rocketed to a five-day Wednesday-to-Sunday opening north of $200 million — only the second film after The Dark Knight to do that.  And it just made another $14.9 million on Monday.  In other words, there’s no stopping it — whether or not you liked it (and to be sure, a heck of a lot of people did), Transformers has briefly taken over the world.

At its current pace, it’ll break through the $300 million mark on Sunday — becoming the highest-grossing film of the year after twelve days.

You could see the effect it had on other films out, too.  The two comedies targeted at teenage boys — Year One and Land of the Lost — both plummeted by 70% from the week before.  (Somewhat surprisingly, The Hangover and Star Trek both had good holds — I guess if you’re good, you’re good.)

It also humorously overpowered the tearjerker My Sister’s Keeper, which made $12 million…a whopping 6% of what Transformers 2 made.

His role in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was a classic Michael Bay-style annoying sidekick role; half the time he’s an arrogant jerk, and the other half the time he’s a jabbering pussy. But no matter. According to the L.A. Times, Bay was quite impressed with the actor:

Director Michael Bay has a third “Transformers” film in mind, and if it plays out as he expects, the next installment would have a more substantial role for Rodriguez. The filmmaker, speaking at his office a few weeks before “Revenge of the Fallen” was released, seemed to have some pride of discovery when talking about Rodriguez.

“I’ve worked with big stars, people like Will Smith, Sean Connery and Bruce Willis, but casting is a weird thing, it takes you places you don’t expect,” Bay said. “We went looking for a sidekick in this movie, Shia’s sidekick, and we find this new kid who really pops on screen. I think he’s going to have a real bright career. It’s great to work with big stars, but it’s always fun to discover people.”

So it looks like we’ll be getting a lot more of Leo in Transformers 3: Rise of the Revenged Fallen Again Plus More Robots We Couldn’t Fit in the First Two.

In fact, the gross is now the second-biggest opening of any day.  It came up short only to The Dark Knight’s 67.1 million Friday gross last year, and beat Spider-Man 3’s $59.8 million.

According to early estimates, Revenge of the Fallen followed it up with a $28 million Thursday gross, $3 million more than Paramount expected.  That puts it on track to make more than $185 million in its first five days.

The Dark Knight did $203.8 million in five days, so the record is still slightly out of reach, but the simple fact is that Revenge of the Fallen is a monster.  And it’s a good thing considering there hasn’t yet been a $300 million movie yet this summer.

Last year, before Batman hit, we had two — Iron Man and Indiana Jones.  This year, Wolverine hit $170, Terminator disappointed with $120, and Star Trek and Up are both hovering in the mid-$200s.  As successful as both of those two films are, now we can safely say that thanks to Transformers, the summer finally feels alive.

According to Deadline Hollywood Daily, rival studios were guessing Transformers 2 would do $10-12 million.  Heh.  If there’s this much excitement, look for a Wednesday to Sunday tally of $160 million or more.  Again, The Dark Knight is still untouchable — it made $158 million in Friday to Sunday alone — but for sure, Michael Bay’s latest flick is going to end up being the biggest movie of the summer, unless it crashes too hard in the second weekend and Harry Potter shows particularly good legs next month.  I’ll keep you updated as we get closer to the weekend.

I know, I know, we all want to have a good time here.  We just want to see a movie about killer robots!  Who cares what the stuffy critics in their stupid critic land of stupid critic opinions say!

I’d be all for that point of view…except, I’ve seen it, and they’re right.  It’s absurd.  Read any random review and you’ll find lines like these:

NYTimes:

…the introduction of two new Autobot characters, the illiterate, bickering twins Skids (Tom Kenny) and Mudflap (Reno Wilson), both of which take the shape of Chevrolet concept cars. The characters have been given conspicuously cartoonish, so-called black voices that indicate that minstrelsy remains as much in fashion in Hollywood as when, well, Jar Jar Binks was set loose by George Lucas. For what it’s worth, the script, by Ehren Kruger, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, also includes a crack about Simmons, who’s coded as Jewish, and his “pubic-fro head.”

Ebert:

There are many great-looking babes in the film, who are made up to a flawless perfection and look just like real women, if you are a junior fanboy whose experience of the gender is limited to lad magazines…

L.A. Times:

“Revenge” is strictly a man’s world…Although there are female Autobots and Decepticons in the Transformer universe, they are rare and none make it into the movie.

(That’s actually mistaken — there’s one female Autobot in the movie who has one line and is promptly killed.)

AICN:

…the frightening sidekicks of the film and the mistake this film will most likely be forever known for: Mudflap and Skids…Oh. My. God. They speak in clichéd urban slang, tossing around phrases like “I’m gonna pop a cap in your ass” while fist bumping and mumbling unintelligently in a voice that sounds like a bad Chappelle Show sketch. Then you get a close up. And they each have bug eyes and a gold tooth. Then there’s this jackass comment about them not being able to read. My jaw was on the floor.

Variety:

…a college whose students all look like twentysomething actors, and whose frat parties seem to take place at expensive strip clubs. In fact, on his first night out, Sam is treated to a sort of lap dance by a Decepticon posing as a nymphomaniacal freshman.

The Hollywood Reporter:

…Fox has little to do except look great in a tank top and tight jeans while running in slow motion…

The Associated Press:

The only robots with any discernible personality traits, aside from bravery or antagonism, are the Autobot twins, Mudflap and Skids. These are shockingly crass and unfortunate black stereotypes, jive-talking fools who can’t read and bumble their way from one mishap to the next. They are Jar Jar Binks in car form…

Those are the first seven media outlets I thought of, by the way.  There was no picking and choosing.  It was just a matter of skimming through the review and finding the token part about how offensive the movie is.

For my two cents, I was focused less on Mudflap and Skids (I guess I’ve become desensitized to alien racial stereotypes after the Star Wars prequels — not just because of Jar Jar but also because of the Neimoidians) than I was on some of the subtler offenses.

Example? Every woman in the movie is either presented as a complete imbecile (Sam’s mom — seriously, it’s painful) or a sex object.  There’s a scene near the beginning of the movie where Sam’s moving into college, and on the move-in day, students and parents and boxes everywhere, the only girls you see are ones walking in and out of the bathroom wearing nothing but towels.  That’s not hot; it’s pathetic.  There are also constant references to Megan Fox’s hotness (including a mini-Decepticon complaining “you’re hot, but you ain’t too bright”), so much so that it gets tiresome.

As for the racism, you can talk about Mudflap and Skids, but how about Tyrese Gibson’s character?  He gets fourth billing, which might make you think he’s got a decent part.  Sorry to disappoint.  He has about ten lines in the entire movie, all of them typical black sidekick comic relief stuff.  The good-looking white soldier (Josh Duhamel) is the one who actually gets to do everything.

The reviews were also solid — for a summer movie, anyway.  Of all the reviews listed on Rotten Tomatoes, 57% of them were positive.  RT’s consensus?  “While believable characters are hard to come by in Transformers, the effects are staggering and the action is exhilarating.”

In other words, it was a classic example of a good Michael Bay movie.

Not to be preaching doom on a site called Transformers Movie Buzz, but the responses so far for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen seem to indicate that it’s a bad Michael Bay movie.

For a direct comparison, the Rotten Tomatoes score is now at 21% — 31 positive reviews versus 115 negative reviews.  But it’s the content of the reviews themselves that tell a bigger story.  Ain’t it Cool News, the granddaddy of movie fanboy sites, has four different editorial reviews up, and they’re all negative.  Here’s a taste:

The film is padded by an hour of completely unnecessary, worthless, offensive and repugnant sequences that do nothing but tread water. Be it the family dogs f***ing, twice. An extended sequence of Mom hopped up on pot brownies on a reefer madness binge. Then we’ll talked about racist foul-mouthed robots that are built in monkey proportions, have a big shiny gold tooth and do nothing to advance the story an inch.

And:

[A]ll this leads to the worst sin of the film. It’s called TRANSFORMERS. And yet, 90% of the film is spent entirely with the above collection of tools and occasionally Bumblebee who has mysteriously lost his voice again. Sure, the film OPENS with Optimus Prime and all the badasses from the previous film. But they’re barely in this film at all. It’s more about Shia and Megan running around, collecting incompetent sidekicks while half-assing their way through an Indiana Jones plot. Ironhide? Ratchet? They’re all back at the base. They could only spare a pair of sambot jackasses for THE MOST IMPORTANT MISSION, LIKE, EVER!

If you prefer your reviewers established and respected, here’s Roger Ebert’s one star review:

“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.

Well hey, it’s inspiring new creative insults, so that can’t be all bad. To end on a positive note, here’s Owen Gleiberman’s “B” review for Entertainment Weekly:

At last year’s Comic-Con convention, several representatives of Revenge of the Fallen appeared with the slogan ”Bigger. F—ing. Robots.” on their T-shirts, and Bay, taking that cue, knows just what his job is relative to the first Transformers (2007): It’s to make the movie huger, louder, smashier, and — on the mechanical level — more crazily, audaciously imaginative. He succeeds…Revenge of the Fallen may be a massive overdose of popcorn greased with motor oil. But it knows how to feed your inner 10-year-old’s appetite for destruction.

Beyond that, though, one of the keepers of MichaelBay.com posted the following list of cool trivia details about the new movie:

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

It opens on a Wednesday — June 24th — so it won’t break the three-day opening record that The Dark Knight set with $158 million last summer.  But it will almost certainly make more than that over its first Wednesday to Sunday span.  Rival studios are pegging the debut at $175-180 million, while Paramount itself is aiming for around $160 million.

The sky’s the limit, really.  Today, Deadline Hollywood Daily reported that ROTF is accounting for 21% of all online ticket sales.  And, again, that’s two weeks before the movie comes out.

Paramount was smart to choose June 24th as its opening day.  Its second weekend will be Fourth of July weekend, and while moviegoers tend to stay home on July 4th itself, they heavily go to the movies in the surrounding days.  That means Revenge of the Fallen’s second-weekend drop might be soft compared with other summer blockbusters like Wolverine (which dropped 69%) and Terminator Salvation (which dropped 61%).

On acting:

I tried [to act well]. But unless you’re a seasoned veteran, working with Michael Bay is not about an acting experience.

I can’t s— on this movie because it did give me a career and open all these doors for me. But I don’t want to blow smoke up people’s ass. People are well aware that this is not a movie about acting.

On her looks:

I think all women in Hollywood are known as sex symbols. That’s what our purpose is in this business. You’re merchandised, you’re a product. You’re sold and it’s based on sex. But that’s okay. I think women should be empowered by that, not degraded.

On why some women don’t like her:

Sure, for the same reason they didn’t like me in high school. I come across as confident and they assume that means that I think I’m hot s—. And that makes them feel bad about themselves and so they hate me.

On the topless photos of her that leaked from the set of Jennifer’s Body:

Well, I wasn’t topless. I had booby stickers on. They make these silicone stickers that go on over your nipple. If I’d been actually topless, I would have sued someone. But that’s a really unfortunate thing that happened. I know who [alerted the paparazzi] and I never did anything about it. It’s her karma to deal with, not mine.

You take Sam and you put a monkey on his shoulder, [and] I don’t know if it’s that big a differential. It seems like he’s the ordinary guy in an extraordinary situation again… I’m not willing to make that movie currently, and may be too old to play the role by the time it does come around.

[via Wizard Magazine]

LaBeouf would’ve played Yorick Brown in the flick, the last man on an Earth full of females after a virus wipes out everyone with a Y chromosome.  His main companion?  A monkey named Ampersand.

That currently leaves only the inevitable Transformers 3 and the John Grisham adaptation The Associate on LaBeouf’s schedule.  Course, both are pretty big projects.

I’m also completely illiterate when it comes to new music, so the fact that I actually recognize ten of the thirteen bands might be a sign that the list is a little stale.

Nope, sorry, but I don’t recognize Cavo, Theory of a Deadman, or Avenged Sevenfold.  Oh, they play that song that’s been on the radio and in clubs nonstop?  Sorry, I still don’t know it.  I didn’t know who Fall Out Boy was until well after everybody was sick of them, and I immeditately didn’t like them after learning their name had nothing to do with the Fallout games.  But enough about me.  Here’s the tracklist:

1. Linkin Park “New Divide”
2. Green Day “21 Guns”
3. Cavo “Let It Go”
4. Taking Back Sunday “Capital M-E”
5. The Fray “Never Say Never”
6. Nickelback “Burn It To The Ground”
7. The Used “Burning Down The House”
8. Theory Of A Deadman “Not Meant To Be”
9. The All-American Rejects “Real World”
10. Hoobastank “Don’t Think I Love You”
11. Staind “This Is It”
12. Avenged Sevenfold “Almost Easy”
13. Cheap Trick “Transformers™ The Fallen Remix”

Eight Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen stills were just released, all of which you can check out in the gallery below (click each one for a much bigger look).

Only two are of Megan Fox, but we also get out first look at Isabel Lucas’s characer, “Alice.”  We surmised earlier this year that Alice is probably an evil Decepticon Pretender, and the photo doesn’t even seem to want to hide that: she looks so obviously evil it’s almost laughable.

Other than the girls, we’ve got Bumblebee and Optimus in vehicle form, the introduction of Sam’s friend Leo (Ramon Rodriguez), and the return of Jon Turturro and Tyrese Gibson.  Without further ado…