Why Director Michael Bay Was Too Scared To Make Transformers?
Action director and Transformers fame, Michael Bay has finally discussed why it was frightening to make Transformers, at least in the first go.
Transformers was released back in 2007, and Bay’s first film in the franchise, thereby marking the starting of a saga that is still up and running with new installments to this very day.
Backstory of Transformers & Initial Success
The movie reveals the backstory of Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) who becomes an important player in the ongoing ancient war between two separate factions of sentient robots, the Decepticons and Autobots. The movie was divisive among the critics, but was a huge box office success, grossing more than $709 million.
The characters are inspired by the Hasbro line of toys under the same name, the film brings to life some iconic characters like Peter Cullen’s Optimus Prime and Megatron, played by MCU’s Hugo Weaving in live-action.
The movie did have a high budget, boasting one of 147 million and even had VFX, that at the time, was considered as ground-breaking work, and a lot of it still holds up well today after 15 odd years. Transformers also has a talented supporting cast, including Megan Fox, Ryrese Gibson, Josh Duhamel, Anthony Anderson, John Turturro, Jon Voight, Kevin Dunn, and Rachel Taylor.
Michael Bay Was Scared To Make Transformers
In a recent interview with Yahoo, Michael Bay remembered his time on helming Transformers, even revealing that he was quite scared in the beginning. Bay also stated that there was enough pressure on the VFX shots alleviated these concerns.
Check out Bay’s full comment below:
“It was scary. Because if the robots didn’t look dead real, [the movie would not have worked]. But we broke a lot of visual effects ground on that.
“[My friend Mike] goes, ‘Bay, I don’t know about that Transformer thing. We’re having a beer, I’m like, ‘Yeah, I know. It’s a little scary.’ Then I showed him the first scene, Scorponok jumping out of the desert, right behind Tyrese. I showed it to him. He goes, ‘Oh, OK. Alright, I get it now.'”
Hasbro’s Transformers toys were introduced in the 1980s with an original animated TV show, and the two quickly becoming popular among the masses. Many critics did not like certain aspects of story of Transformers and a few of its characters, only some would deny that the movie got the films’ character to life with some incredible VFX.
A Seventh Film Is Under Development
Michael Bay had earlier commented that he should have ust stopped with Transformers film after Dark of the Moon (2011), suggesting that his time with the popular franchise could be at an end. Despite Bay isn’t involved as a director, a seventh Transformers film is laready under way with newcomer Steven Caple Jr., which means an all-new era of never-ending stories with Decepticons and Autobots might just be on the horizon.
