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Michael Bay

“Fuck it”

Are Hollywood execs and director Michael Bay still dancing like they do every other time a new Transformers film is announced?  It seems that this time Bay is calling it quits and has confirmed he wants to film another movie during the currently planned production schedule of Transformers 5; the news broken by IGN earlier this morning.

This Collecticon can’t help but feel that this is just the same old routine as every other time Bay finishes a record-breaking Transformers movie, and Paramount / Hasbro announce the sequel with reckless abandon.  I think it goes something like this:

1. Movie is announced – 2. Director publicly claims he doesn’t want to do it – 3. Movie exec’s realize Bay is the secret ingredient in their recipe to make money – 4. Closed door negations occur – 5. Bay announces with pride that he will be directing the next sequel – 6. all is forgotten.

So which phase are we in?  Are we in the midst of steps 2 and 4, or have we entered a new type of step 5 where Bay has gone completely AWOL and his demands to make a 1.5 billion dollar movie were too outrageous to be met?  Perhaps lacking toy sales for Age of Extinction caused the Hasbro side of the negotiations to be a little less apt to rise to Mr. Bay’s monetary demands.

Or perhaps Michael is really just sick of filming these monstrosities.  This announcement affects a lot of people close to him, though.  A large portion of his effects and filming crew count on work due to large budget films like the Transformers franchise.  It’s kind of like when a large money-making touring act like say, Blink 182, decides to go on touring hiatus for months or years.  Their entire crew is now stranded without consistent work and must scramble together new jobs with any other comparable act that can take them.  In other words, breaking up the band breaks up a lot more people than just the band.

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Two of my favorite gut-reactions from Members of Bottalk

My personal thoughts are that this is a bummer.  I don’t love the Bay films and I have always wanted someone else to get a shot at it, but there are too many cliffhangers.  I want Bay’s store to finish and I wanted him to finish it.  Sure that meant 1 to 2 more bloated films, but cutting and running before it’s all said and done is going to make it even worse.  If there’s one thing Paramount knew they could count on, it’s that Bay would finish the product on time and on budget.  Throwing a new crew and director into the mix may expectantly delay the release of the film by a whole year.

So is this it?  Is the era of Bayformers at an end?  You answer below:

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