I posted this in the thread about Empire's pictures, but it needs more exposure certainly: *Bay and LaBeouf confirm the Fallen is a separate character. End of. *Egyptian hieroglyphics, like the one at the bottom of my post, turn out to be depictions of Transformers who visited Earth. *Bay claims Megatron is not coming back and the tank is just a new toy. *Around 40 robots. *Budget is $200 million. *Ramon Rodriguez is the one holding on for dear life to a pole while cars are flung. *Devastator appears at the pyramid, he's probably 50 feet tall because that's the height of the camera crane they used on location.
What the? Forty? Lemme try counting: Prime, Ratchet, Ironhide, Bumblebee, Jetfire, Starscream, Barricade, Soundwave, Arcee, Volt, Sideswipe, Audi R8, Trax & Beat, 7 Constructicons, Ice-cream truck twins, Fallen, Ravage. 25, if you count Arcee as three then you have 27. Who are the last thirteen? More of Soundwave's minions? Drones? Seekers? Anyway I hope for quality screentime for the robots and better human characters.
Yeah if the tank art was unused from the first movie we would've seen it already. Maybe it just didn't make the cut, though. I could've sworn we heard 40 robots before?
EDIT: You're right, in this shot though, I'm guessing it's Optimus, since it's about 30 feet and not extended at the full height. Maybe Devastator takes a swing at Optimus and knocks off some boulders? EDIT 2: Bay lists Optimus' height at 28 feet, ILM lists it at 32 feet.
holy shit..40, is he joking, damn....and that Megatron part is so pathetic it stink like a farm of skunks.
I'm sure that almost half of the robots will only appear in the final battle and might not even get named.
only $200 Million for the budget? hmmm. the first one had minimal bot screentime because of budget constraints with $150 million...so how are they going to get 40 robots in there?
That was my first thought, asking how many robots there are could be like asking how many Narnians are there in a Narnia film.
Mayhaps they got the bugs in the system worked out. Part of the budget of the first one went to figuring out how to animate the bots,and now that they know the cinematic mechanics of the robots...
40 robots? Hell yes. Don't even care if they are nameless Bots and Cons showing up for a final battle, as long as it shows the war is much bigger than just 5 Bots vs 5 Cons or something like that, as was the cause in the first movie. Exciting!
Wouldn't it be a bad idea to form Devastator in the open desert, since it's already established the US army kicks more ass than the Autobots? Unless Devastator has some wicked amount of firepower all over his body and can swat down jets like flies from hundreds of miles away. That'd be cool.
A lot of concept work has been done already for the first film (Arcee, etc) Models are already created, so less for R&D on that end. Presumably the licenses carried over for Optimus, etc, so there's less money spent there. The main cast would have signed for multiple films (likely) so there's not going to be a lot of renegotiation there I'd imagine. Bay's military connections are definitely paying off, filming on aircraft carriers, lots of extras, free fire ranges, etc. And since the first one practically made it's budget back during the first week, I don't see a problem. If anyone's curious, here's how Spidey 2 breaks down: * Story rights: $20 million * Screenplay: $10 million * Producers: $15 million * Director (Sam Raimi): $10 million * Cast: $30 million o Tobey Maguire: $18 million o Kirsten Dunst: $7 million o Alfred Molina: $3 million o Rest of cast: $3 million * Production costs: $45 million * Visual effects: $65 million * Music: $5 million o Composer (Danny Elfman): $2 million. * Total: $200 million (Using Spidey 2 since Raimi and Bay seem to have similar sensibilities when it comes to cutting budgets for filming with practical stuff versus CGI) Shia got paid $500k for TF1. Bay likely took a backend deal on DVDs, hence the fuss over HD-DVD's exclusive and then later Blu-Ray. Spielberg likely got a deal on ILM due to his connections as well. So, yeah, I don't see any problems really.
This goes back to everything they've said since July 2007: they worked out how to depict the robots, now they can have more fun. And simply $200 million shows Bay is still being careful, considering its still less than the $300 million extravaganzas that became more common in 2007.
Not just careful I believe. From what I've read, Mr. Bay and his financial team are somehow able to stick to the appointed budget most of the time, whereas others somehow start to throw money around and go way over that. It's not that 200 million isn't much, it's just that 300 million is alot and it's handled by less focused people (most of the time), resulting in money drainage. Less is more. If you work with restrains, you will be able to focus on how you can improve something with the means you have. Just look at something like Star Wars..sure, the originals were campy, but if you look at the prequels, it becomes quite obvious Lucas doesn't know what the hell to do with all the money he has now, and wasting it all on special effects clearly doesn't make it a better movie.
Good to hear. Say WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!? I don't believe that. This has to be Bay spewing out false information. BULLCRAP! Try explaining the Megatron toy that showed up a couple of weeks ago. Damn. That's a LOT of robots. This has to be false info also. Who the fudgemonkeys is Ramon Rodriguez? BIG.