Here’s video of Megan Fox on Jimmy Kimmel last week. Jimmy asks her what it’s like working with Michael Bay, and she tells this story:
“The first time I ever met him, I was 15, and I was an extra on Bad Boys 2. We were shooting this club scene, and they brought me in, and I was wearing a stars and stripes bikini and a red cowboy hat, and six-inch heels. And they took me to Mike and he approved it. And they said, ‘You know, Michael, she’s 15, so you can’t sit her at the bar and she can’t have a drink in her hand.’ So his solution to that problem was to then have me dancing underneath a waterfall getting soaking wet. At 15. I was in tenth grade. So that’s sort of a microcosm of how Bay’s mind works.” [you can see the super short clip of her that made it into the movie after the jump]
Bottom line, this just adds to the mountain of evidence that a reality show about Michael Bay would be about 1000 times more awesome than a Michael Bay movie. I also love how Megan Fox was already in six-inch heels and a bikini, but acts indignant about him making her get wet. As if she thought she was going there to explain the electoral college. “Yeah, so anyway, I’m on all fours drinking water out of the toilet, and next thing you know, guy tells me to bark like a dog. And I’m like, what a sicko, you know?”
The initial estimates for the weekend box office have Transformers 2 and Ice Age 3D tied with $42.5 million. Elsewhere, Public Enemies had a solid five-day gross of $41 million, and The Hangover became the fourth movie of the year to top $200 million domestically (the fastest to $200 mil ever for an R-rated comedy). And The Hurt Locker is still in limited release, but had the highest per-theater average ($14,000), as it should, because it’s easily the best movie out right now.
The “Transformers” sequel — produced by Paramount, DreamWorks and Hasbro — fell 61% in its second weekend for $293.5 million in cumulative boxoffice through 12 days of domestic release.
The “Transformers” sequel was filmed for a reported $200 million and carries costly backend commitments to director Michael Bay, not to mention hefty global marketing expenses. But with its worldwide boxoffice approaching $600 million, Paramount and its co-producer partners already might be treading into profitability, and a potentially leggy theatrical run and deep ancillary revenue should help the rich get richer. [THR]
Hold on, with a gross approaching $600 million it MIGHT be treading into a profitability? First of all, even with Bay’s bazookas and tigers budget there’s no way it cost $400 million to market, especially not when he’s getting paid by GM, Audi, LG cell phones, Green Day, et. al. The movie was essentially two hours of getting eyeball raped by Super Bowl commercials while Shia LaBeouf sped through the plot exposition like the Micro Machines guy reading the fine print on your Verizon contract (over gratuitous slo-mo shots of Megan Fox’s tits). Secondly, Michael Bay doesn’t tread into anything. He hires an army of assistants to do it and then fines them if they let him touch the water.
The only way I could understand Transformers 2 was that it was all an inside joke by the filmmakers. I mean, there’s no way you film Shia LaBeouf meeting Optimus Prime’s ancestors in robot heaven without giggling the whole time. But the thing about Michael Bay is that he never breaks character. His recent interview in the Wall Street Journal is either amazingly Freudian or a work of Andy Kaufman-level genius.
It’s interesting that you say you want to focus on acting. Megan Fox 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 [**Bay cups hands in front of chest and winks** -Ed]. 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. Nic Cage wasn’t a big actor when I cast him, nor was Ben Affleck before I put him in “Armageddon.” [keep in mind both Nic Cage and Ben Affleck were Oscar winners before they worked with Bay] 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. [WSJ]
What an amazing answer. When you break it down, it’s basically, “How could you say my movies are effects driven? That’s 100% false. Remember Nic Cage? Ben Affleck? Shia LaBeouf? I BLEW THEM UP! …Wow, she really said I can’t explode stuff good, huh? I’ll show her. I’ll show them all.”
(Transformers 2: You Can’t Even Tell Who’s Fighting)
Five days after opening in the U.S., Transformers 2 has earned $387.2 million dollars worldwide. Domestically, it earned $201.2 million, becoming the second-highest five-day gross ever behind The Dark Knight ($203.8). And keep in mind it opened on a Wednesday.
The five-day opening gross of $201.2 million from 4,234 theaters domestically easily eclipsed the $152.4 million earned by “Spider-Man 2,” which previously held the five-day record for a Wednesday launch. Overseas, the action tentpole opened to an estimated $162 million, the fourth 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).
Despite negative reviews, more than 90% of those polled as they left theaters said the sequel was as good as, or better than, the first. [Variety]
I find that poll hard to believe, but knowing the audience for this film I’m not sure those polled were capable of understanding the question. I saw Transformers on Saturday afternoon. Before the movie started, the groups of kids directly in front of me and behind me were both playing video games (with the sound on) on their PSPs. Then throughout the movie, of the three white kids sitting in front of me, two were texting the entire movie and one actually answered his phone during. The two black dudes to my left yelled at the screen the whole time, and on my right, there was a Hispanic woman translating everything into Spanish for her husband. Everywhere children were crying or yelling or whining about going to the bathroom, and I was convinced that at any second, a kid with a propeller beanie and giant lollypop would run down the aisle smearing everyone’s face with chocolate. Long story short, I thought the film was pretty terrible, but given the atmosphere I might not have been the best audience for a movie about saving humanity.
Opening this weekend:
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
What’s all this, then? I haven’t heard anything about it.
My Sister’s Keeper
Oh yeah, this movie is jerking my tears so good. Haha, seriously though, this looks like an epic sh*tpile. It’s about a little girl with cancer and littler girl created to provide her with new organs. And Cameron Diaz. Gets extra points for putting the line “From the moment we decided to genetically conceive I suppose it was our fault,” in the trailer. Classic.
The Hurt Locker
Haven’t seen this yet, myself, but I’ve heard almost universally good things about it. It’s running 96% recommended on RottenTomatoes and sounds like an all-around ass-puckering war flick. Plus the title makes a great all-purpose euphemism. “Show us on the doll where daddy touched you, did he put it in your hurt locker?” Or “Shut up, you little sh*ts or else you’re going in the hurt locker again. Yeah, yeah, that’s what I thought.”
