• Directed nine movies
• One movie tanked at the box office
• 4th Highest Grossing Director of All Time according to BoxOffice Mojo
• Youngest age in the top ten Grossing directors according to Boxoffice Mojo
• Bay most likely has received the most Razzie nominations as a director ever has
• Transformers Dark of the Moon: 140 million people around the world attended
• Transformers Dark of the Moon box-office $1.123 billion dollars.
• Transformers Dark of the Moon received 7 Noms this year
• Transformers Dark of the Moon is 4th highest grossing movie of All Time (the last Harry Potter is 3rd , and last Lord of the Rings is 5th).
• The next most attended movie Nominee is Jack and Jill, 4.2 million people.
• Transformers Dark of the Moon made $1.20 billion more dollars then the next Nominee Jack and Jill
• Number of Razzie Judges: 423
• Razzie Judges with Emperor packages: 13 (not sure what special shit they get)

Achievement in Sound Editing

Hugo wins here, which is stupid. Drive was nominated because it was loud and realistic, but I don’t think that overcomes Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which created an amazing and realistic immersive experience that was well thought out. Say what you will about the movie or Bay, but the film is cutting edge and sounded amazing.

Achievement in Sound Mixing

Again, Hugo doesn’t hold a candle to Transformers. The action film is ignored because it’s perceived as being big, loud, and stupid, when it is actually big, loud, and technically crafted amazingly in several departments. Hate the film, you can’t ignore the layers of sound work here.

Achievement in Visual Effects + This is What’s Wrong with the Oscars Part 2

The childish Hugo again wins, inexplicably. I don’t think Deathly Hallows had the consistency in its effects work to win here. Many were cheering Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but I don’t think that wins here either – what was the achievement? More facial mocap? Big whoop. The technology being utilized here is Lord of the Rings stuff plus the hair texturing of King Kong. It’s not groundbreaking. I liked Real Steel, which had some pretty great effects, but the king of the pile here is Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

This is again what’s wrong with the Oscar’s. They don’t want to give Transformers an Academy Award, despite the fact that it is utterly amazing visually. Michael Bay has a bad reputation in some professional circles and a lot of people consider him to be a bad director – so what? This isn’t about good people and this category actually isn’t about “good” movies. Transformers is at least competent in every department, but when it comes to visual effects, this film is retardedly amazing. The robots move more realistically than the apes in Rise, and they seamlessly interact with the physical environment. The effects are blended perfectly.

Further, the film breaks ground in processing power and what’s possible on the screen. Each of the Transformers is made up of hundreds, if not tens of thousands, of pieces that are animated. There was a time when just putting one of those guys on screen was impossible, yet now a battle can rage with dozens of Transformers fighting dozens of flying vehicles while buildings collapse in the background. This just isn’t about the robots, it’s about the entire digital landscape collapsing around them. Dark of the Moon was fucking robbed.

After a decade in development, Michael Bay's "Pain and Gain," a low-budget (by his standards) dark comedy about bodybuilders, is finally moving forward, as Dwayne Johnson is in early talks to topline the long-gestating pic.

Based on a Miami New Times article from 1999, "Pain and Gain" will follow a pair of Florida bodybuilders who get caught up in an extortion ring and a kidnapping scheme that goes terribly wrong.

"Captain America" scribes Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely wrote the original script and have compared its tone to the Coen brothers' "Fargo," which was also based on a true crime story.

Long-gestating dark comedy, which is said to carry a modest $20 million price tag and does not yet have an official greenlight, is set up at Paramount and will be produced by Bay and Donald De Line, who has been involved with the project since 2001.

SINGAPORE: The world's first theme park attraction based on the Transformers franchise opened at Universal Studios Singapore on Friday.

And appearing alongside the Autobots was director-producer, Michael Bay, who did not rule out the possibility of another Transformers sequel.

Mr Bay made a grand entrance in a 2010 edition of the Chevrolet Camaro, which is the same car featured in the Transformers film franchise.

With a touch of the Allspark - the life force of the robots - TRANSFORMERS The Ride officially opened after nearly four years in the making.

Standing nearly three metres tall, Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots, and the much loved Bumblebee are undoubtedly the star attractions.

The latest attraction promises to bring the ultimate 3-D battle between the Autobots and Decepticons with groundbreaking visual effects by Industrial Light & Magic, a division of Lucasfilm.

It is also one of the most expensive rides at Universal Studios Singapore with Mr Bay lending his creative input on its development.

He said the process was similar to directing a movie, only with a ride element thrown in.

Mr Bay said: "I tried to help them sculpt the story and figure out what type of shots we'd like to do, what type of characters we can use. They also had some great ideas.....on how the simulators work, how it mixed with the photography and the shots that we need."

Transformers fans will get to ride inside a never-before featured Autobot called EVAC and whizz through tunnels, cityscapes and across rooftops.

With the opening of the new attraction, Universal Studios is expecting to rake in its highest attendance in December. It did not disclose any figures.

The same ride will make its debut at Universal Studios Hollywood by May next year.

For fans wanting to catch these fighting machines on another big-screen adventure, Mr Bay did not rule out another sequel.

Mr Bay: "How did I know someone's going to ask me this question today? We're talking about it, but there's nothing right now. I'm going to do a tiny movie first, then we'll talk about it, if I potentially do it."

He added that if he is to produce another Transformers movie, it will feature the latest in cinema technology.

Paramount's blockbuster Transformers: Dark of the Moon is being re-released in Imax theaters for an extended two-week run, beginning Friday.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon: An IMAX 3D Experience has been digitally remastered with proprietary IMAX technology.

According to insiders, Dark of the Moon will play in 246 Imax theaters in North America from Aug. 26 to Sept. 8. During those two weeks, the film will play simultaneously with other movies already booked by Imax.

Francesco Quinn, an Italian-born actor and a son of Oscar winner Anthony Quinn, died Friday night of an apparent heart attack near his home in the La Costa neighborhood of Malibu. He was 48.

Quinn was born March 22, 1963 in Rome, Italy to Anthony Quinn's second wife Iolanda. His acting career began in 1986 with a role in the Oscar-winning Oliver Stone film Platoon. He went on to appear in numerous films and television shows, including playing Tomas Del Cerro in the CBS soap opera Young and the Restless. For that role, Quinn was nominated for an American Latino Media Arts Award, which recognizes people who portray positive representations of Latinos.

Over the weekend, Paramount’s threequel Transformers: Dark of the Moon became the top grossing film in the series, with a worldwide total of $882.4 million through Sunday.

The original Transformers grossed $709.7 million globally, while sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen took in $836.3 million. Dark of the Moon’s performance has no doubt been helped by being the only one of the three to be released in 3D.

Dark of the Moon’s weekend tally included $62 million in foreign grosses—fueled by a $40 million-plus opening in China, the biggest three-day launch of all time for an American film and eclipsing Avatar’s debut by 72%.

Michael Bay must have zombie-raising powers, because 3D is back from the dead with Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which pulled in about 60% 3D ticket sales in its opening weekend.

There’s an artistry in his filmmaking that far too few people seem to appreciate, and it’s become a cliche to make jokes about Bay’s films being just a series of explosions. But that demonstrates a gross misunderstanding for what Michael Bay can do as a filmmaker, and ignores some great films on his resume, including those noted above.

Weekend Report: 'Transformers' Claims Independence Gross Record

This weekend, Transformers: Dark of the Moon dominated the box office with an estimated $97.4 million on approximately 9,300 screens at 4,013 locations. In the process, the robo-threequel rocked the Independence Day weekend gross record, eclipsing Spider-Man 2's $88.2 million, and socked Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides for the top-grossing weekend crown of 2011 so far. The Friday-to-Sunday opening salvos of Transformers and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen were $70.5 million and $109 million, respectively.

"...but in this film – you’re going to see a dynamic to his action that is nothing short of jaw-dropping. I say “Jaw-Dropping” not with any sense of hyperbole – in the last hour of this film you’re going to see shit go down that will physically cause your jaw to drop. Hang open and perhaps end with a smile."

The Decepticons are way nastier in this one, and so when Optimus Prime and the Autobots unleash hell... AND THEY DO... it is so deserved and so worthy of one cheer after another that it almost becomes audience participation.

I've seen the film in a regular 3D theater, and in an IMAX presentation, and they are very different experiences. In the regular 3D theater, the FX work looks pretty much flawless, and you can take in the entire widescreen frame at once. In the IMAX theater, you can see every single seam in the work (there aren't many), but you can also get totally lost in the frame. It's a great way to really look at the details of what ILM and Digital Domain did, and I cant say I've ever really felt a sound mix more viscerally. But if you're considering sitting this out for a 2D version, don't. Really. This is a meticulously designed 3D experience, and Bay impresses often and in a real-world setting that makes this more surreal than "Avatar" in many ways. It's so strange to see a city as recognizable as Chicago take this sort of beating, and it's a reminder that many movies try to find cheap and generic solutions to their third acts, something you can't accuse this one of doing.

A. We have finally reached the stage where you can do anything you can think of. You can make anything believable. And the 3-D really elevates this movie.

Q. There are studio types who insist that this film could single-handedly revitalize the entire 3-D field.

A. Listen, there are a lot of movies that have done it very poorly. They abused the technology, and it's a shame. We have devoted a ton of money and a ton of time to make a very good 3-D movie. The entire movie was designed as a 3-D movie. It wasn't an after-thought. People who believe that action is bad in 3-D are 100 percent wrong when the 3-D is done correctly.

Q. How can we tell when it's done correctly?

A. We actually can guide your eye to the action. You can see and feel more in 3-D. I like when the robots are in your space. Not every movie should be 3-D, but the size difference between the humans and robots makes it more effective.

We put that very question not just to Rosie but also to her "Dark of the Moon" co-stars when we met up with them on the red carpet at the 2011 MTV Movie Awards. If you were expecting to hear some juicy gossip about friction between the two, however, prepare to be disappointed: Rosie says that Bay's work ethic was very much in line with her own.

"I met Michael Bay back in 2009 on a Victoria's Secret commercial, and we've always gotten along," she said. "The guy has a great sense of humor, he has a really tough work ethic, which I do. He works really hard, and he expects his team and his cast to be professional and work hard. That's been my work ethic all along, so we get along fine."

When we spoke with franchise veteran Josh Duhamel, who's played special operative Lennox throughout all three "Transformers" films, he said that Rosie's work on "Dark of the Moon" was especially impressive as far as big screen debuts go.

"They got along great. Rosie has a great attitude. She's a very bright girl," he said. "And she's surprisingly good in this film. Who knew? Talk about pressure, your first job, to come on to such a large movie. The pressure was tremendous and she did a great job. She's funny in it. The connection between her and Shia feels very real. I was really proud of her."

Newcomer Patrick Dempsey weighed in on the overall dynamic between Bay and his actors on the set, admitting that the "Transformers" mastermind is "very demanding" — and that's a good thing.

"He wants what he wants and you have to be on it," said Dempsey. "That's how he works. I loved working with him. I didn't have any problems with him and I don't think [Rosie] did either. He's demanding. He's fun, though. Look at the outcome. He's phenomenal. He's a great filmmaker."

"He's a laugh," added Rosie. "And I love doing the stunts. I think he really respected a girl who can get her hands dirty! We had a lot of fun filming."

"Throughout my whole career, I've never seen anybody work so hard," she said of her director. "He's literally done these 'Transformers' movies for six years now.”

”As a cast, we'll do the filming for seven months, then he goes into the editing room and edits for six months," she continued. "Then he comes out of the editing room and he promotes it, and then by the time he finishes that, he's prepping for the next one. It's kind of amazing to see how dedicated he is to these films."

Entertainment Weekly’s EW.com has the exclusive news that Leonard Nimoy has joined the cast of the third Transformers film, Transformers: Dark of the Moon. In the film, Nimoy — who also voiced Galvatron in 1986’s The Transformers: The Movie -- will voice Sentinel Prime, Optimus Prime’s predecessor who was last seen on the moon in the teaser trailer. (His wrecked body was discovered by Apollo 11 astronauts.)

Director Michael Bay tells EW he wanted to cast Limoy in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, but he “was too scared to ask him. Plus, he's married to Susan Bay, who's a cousin of mine. So I had to be careful. I've met him at family functions. But he told me, 'I would be honored. I'm glad to be back!'"

"The short answer is we did too much with technology that wasn't ready for prime time," says director Michael Bay, whose Transformers: Dark of the Moon was shot digitally, in 3-D and on traditional 35mm film.

"Studios are turning everything they can into 3-D without considering whether it should be done at all," he says. "We're already wearing the experience out. Look, there are simply some movies that shouldn't be shot in 3-D," he says. "It doesn't add anything."

But when it does, Bay is a 3-D booster. No stranger to eight-figure film budgets, Bay says that studios need to make the financial commitment to 3-D instead of doing clean-up work. "It's different, shooting in 3-D," Bay says. "You need more cameras. You need different sets. It needs to be a forethought. Right now, studios are treating it as an afterthought."

Directors also need convincing, Bay says. Several months before Avatar was released, Bay says, Cameron invited Bay to the Avatar set. Shot primarily with computer-generated backdrops, the set consisted of bare walls, green screens and rows of computers.

"I first thought, 'This is a fad. And a pain in the ass,' " Bay says. Then he began shooting the third Transformers film in 3-D, with a reported budget north of $200 million. "It isn't cheap, but it shouldn't be," Bay says. "What I love is you really can create new worlds. But you have to commit to it. Fans are right to be more skeptical of it now."

• Michael was shooting today some of the last pickup scenes for Transformers Dark Of The Moon.
• Burglars broke into the production offices of the movie. Federal authorities have been called in due to the sensitive nature of the burglary.

This time around, Bay said, "We worked extra hard" and struck upon "a better story." "It's epic and it happens in a city," he added. "It's more accessible because you recognize stuff — it's not in a desert. It's kind of like 'Black Hawk Down' with our small group of heroes in a city."

“I’m still having fun and especially with this movie,” Bay said. ”Look, we got burned on the last movie. The big thing was the writers strike, it hurt the film and it made it hard on everybody. We had three weeks to get our story and, really, we were going into the movie without a script. It’s tough to do that. It was too big of a movie. There were too many endings or too many things that felt like endings. There was so much animation [in the visual effects postproduction work], too, and we ran out of time. We used the schedule of the first movie for the second movie but on the second one way more labor was needed for the animation. And then it felt like we were writing the script in the edit room, trying to put together a story.”

Instead of giant military operations and armada imagery, this third ”Transformers” film is “lean and mean,” Bay says, and the script by Ehren Kruger (“The Ring“) presents more of a small-team, commando tension. Bay says he thinks of this film as a sort of homeland version of ”Black Hawk Down” — but, you know, with giant alien robots. Instead of Middle East deserts, the majority of the action will be set amid the smoldering boulevards of Chicago where humanity continues to fight against the hulking mecha-warriors from outer space, exploiting their one known weakness (their eyes).

Shia LaBeouf gives this advice to an actor working for the first time with fiery director Michael Bay: "You can only do so much. Fight or flight. A tap on the back and a 'Good luck!' "

LaBeouf's "Transformers 3" co-star John Malkovich — himself an intensely focused pro — needed no such well-wishes. Although it might seem like a collaboration between Bay and Malkovich would be ripe for an on-set conflagration, no such thing took place. In fact, the actor offered effusive praise for Bay during a recent interview with MTV News.

"I found Michael delightful," he told us. "I found him fun, filled with ideas, many of them different than the take before, which I'm perfectly used to because that's how I work anyway. I found his reputation, at least in my case, my experience, utterly unwarranted. But what do I know? Maybe he's changed."

Malkovich is no stranger to studio-driven action sets — he starred in "Con Air" and the upcoming "Red" — and noted how stressful it is for a director to manage a massive production with so many moving parts. He compared his role on the film, in which he plays LaBeouf's cruel boss, to that of a relief pitcher in baseball.

"You also have to try and give them some relief from the stress of doing that every day, all day long, 14, 15 hours a day for months," he explained. "I think with all the pre-planning and all the pre-production and all the storyboards and all the meetings, [Bay is] a filmmaker, so the film is really in his head. I think there are two kinds of people, then, who show up to work, whether they be actors or people on the crew: Either you're trying to help him define and communicate what's in his head, or you're not — or you're just there eating craft services."

Bay reciprocated that creative respect and support to his cast, Malkovich said, including first-time actor — and Megan Fox replacement — Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. "I thought he was very good with [Rosie], very patient, very pleasant and helpful," he said. "For her, that's a strain, if you've never done that before."

Ventura County lawyer has learned that you don't screw around with Michael Bay.

Six weeks after including the "Transformers" director as a defendant in a pistol-whipping battery lawsuit stemming from a fight at a Hollywood club, attorney Christine Renshaw of Renshaw & Associates has put her tail between her legs, dismissed the case against Bay and issued a written apology to him.

"On behalf of our clients and our firm, we sincerely apologize to Michael Bay for his inclusion as a defendant in a lawsuit that was recently filed on behalf of our clients Joshua James Stewart and Paul Klimczak arising from an incident at the Kiss Nightclub," according to the statement given to TMZ.

"Mr. Bay was not at the Kiss Nightclub on the night of the events in question, and he had nothing to do with the alleged incident. We are satisfied that, contrary to the allegations in the lawsuit, the man involved in the altercation and identified as "Doe #1" was not Mr. Bay's employee or private security guard."

The veteran orbiter is also enjoying a weekend at the movies, as filming of Transformers 3 picks up at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC).

Scenes are expected to be shot at Pad 39A on Wednesday – understood to be timed with Discovery being on show with the RSS retracted, meaning the Shuttle may gain herself some credits in the movie.

Hundreds of extras have received security clearance to be in the grounds of KSC during the filming, while Cape Canaveral sources noted Atlas and Delta resources will also be involved in some scenes. Director Michael Bay had previously filmed at KSC during the making of Armageddon – which involved scenes with Atlantis and Endeavour.

''The city's been unbelievably amazing -- from Mayor Daley all the way down to each and every police officer helping us out,'' said Bay. ''We don't want to inconvenience people too much, so we've been working hard to play ball with the fire department and the police.''

Pointing toward Lake Michigan, he said, ''You go over to Michigan Avenue -- right there by the Wrigley Building ... and you look back this way [pointing west along the Chicago River] and it's the most beautiful skyline in the world. ... The reason it's so interesting is -- unlike New York, where you've got to get far away in a helicopter to make it interesting -- Chicago has so many interesting bits of architecture, you can capture very close up.''

Rumors have abounded recently and now it's official. Director Michael Bay and producers Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Ian Bryce are bringing a cast and crew -- about 150 all told -- to film a scene from the new "Transformers 3" at the Milwaukee Art Museum on July 12.

"We're really excited to showcase the Art Museum in what will be one of the most anticipated blockbuster films for next summer," said Milwaukee Art Museum Director Dan Keegan.

"Logistical planning for the film began last November, and the cooperation between the city, the county and the private sector has been tremendous."

"All factors considered, including salaries, hotels, food, fuel and miscellaneous equipment, supplies and rentals could pump more than $1 million into the local economy during its very limited shooting window. That does not include the incalculable positive image visibility for the city when the film is released in July 2011," said Paul .

“Transformers 3” — the sci-fi action thriller filming in Chicago this summer — will pump $20 million into the local economy and create 200 jobs, including ten internships for inner-city students, Mayor Daley said today.

“Transformers 3” is certain to include even more scenes of death and destruction on the streets of Chicago.

“You’re gonna see a little bit of mayhem. You know, I mean it wouldn’t be ‘Transformers’ without it,” Di Bonaventura said.

“Hopefully, it’ll be fun. What we find is, people really end up enjoying the spectacle of what we’re doing.”

When asked about the potential for “mayhem,” Daley said it was being created in the name of art with all manner of safety precautions. He also asked “everyone for our understanding” when the filming leads to “street closures or other potential problems.”

Daley said the film and TV industry “is a growing part of our economic development strategy . . . because movies and TV shows made in and about Chicago showcase our city to the world, create excitement about it and create jobs for our residents.”

Di Bonaventura said they were still selecting specific sites to film, but would “be shooting a lot in downtown.”

The jobs generated by the Transformers project will include 10 internships for South and West side high school students.

"I'll take some of the criticism," says Bay, standing at a set built to resemble a dilapidated nuclear reactor. "It was very hard to put (the sequel) together that quickly after the writers' strike (of 2007-08)."

Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura says the rush strained the plot: "We tried to do too many things in the second movie, which didn't give enough time in any one of them. We were constantly jumping to the next piece of information, the next place."

Bay is not one for mea culpas, but he says he can do better. "This one really builds to a final crescendo. It's not three multiple endings," the director says.

Bay calls the second film's villain, The Fallen, "kind of a (expletive) character." The new movie's foe is certain to make fans of the original '80s incarnation smile: Shockwave, the robot cyclops-turned-laser-cannon, who became dictator of their home world of Cybertron after the other Autobots and Decepticons journeyed to Earth.

"One thing we're getting rid of is what I call the dorky comedy," Bay adds. So the twins, the two bumbling, slang-spewing robots? "They're basically gone," he says, though John Turturro returns for comic relief.

Plot details are under wraps, but it delves into the space race between the U.S.S.R. and the USA, suggesting there was a hidden Transformers role in it all that remains one of the planet's most dangerous secrets. "The movie is more of a mystery," Bay says. "It ties in what we know as history growing up as kids with what really happened."

Bay hints that there may be a lot of that. "As a trilogy, it really ends," he says. "It could be rebooted again, but I think it has a really killer ending."

"No just a bad rumor. Not true at all. The same can be said for the Birds - we never considered that remake for Platinum Dunes."

I shoot complicated stuff, I put real elements into action scenes and honestly, I am not sold right now on the conversion process.... Right now, it looks like fake 3-D, with layers that are very apparent. You go to the screening room, you are hoping to be thrilled, and you're thinking, huh, this kind of sucks. People can say what they want about my movies, but they are technically precise, and if this isn't going to be excellent, I don't want to do it. And it is my choice.... I'm used to having the A-team working on my films, and I'm going to hand it over to the D-team, have it shipped to India and hope for the best? This conversion process is always going to be inferior to shooting in real 3-D. Studios might be willing to sacrifice the look and use the gimmick to make $3 more a ticket, but I'm not.

"The true story is we went to Vegas to celebrate ['Revenge of the Fallen'] crossing the $400 million mark domestic. I said I'm excited to do my small little movie. They said, well we're here to talk about that. I've become friends with these guys that run Paramount and they [told me,] 'We're going to get fired if we don't have a 2011 franchise,' so I'm like you can't let these guys down. "The economy's been so rough, it's kind of important. When you say yes to movie like this you automatically give 3000 people jobs. 1000 for the toys. 2000 for the filmmaking. I'm going to put [the small film] on hold and do it right after ['Transformers 3']."

"You can't just rehash the old," he explained. "We're adding a lot of new elements. We're adding new characters. We're adding a lot of twists."

"It's a process we're testing with some 'Transformers' scenes," he said. "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."

Michael Bay, director and producer of the blockbuster Transformers series, beat mogul Steven Spielberg to top Vanity Fair's inaugural list of Hollywood's Top 40 Moneymakers, which the magazine releases on Tuesday. Bay pulled in $125 million last year, according to the magazine, ahead of Spielberg ($85 million), action director Roland Emmerich ($70 million), Avatar auteur James Cameron ($50 million), and Todd Phillips, producer of The Hangover ($44 million). The magazine limits its list to film-industry creatives: producers, directors, and stars.

“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.”

• 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.

The long Labor Day weekend saw decent traffic at the multiplex, ending a record-breaking summer at the domestic B.O. that saw a number of titles overperform. Summer revenues topped out at an estimated $4.31 billion through Monday, up 4% over summer 2007, the previous recordholder at $4.16 billion. Admissions were essentially even with summer 2008. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and "Up" topped the summer chart.

• 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"

• 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.

“According to estimates from Box Office Mojo, the blockbuster grossed $17.8 million on Friday, edging past Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs' $17 million for the top spot the second day in a row...With a ten-day total of $268.7 million, director Michael Bay can now stake his claim to making the highest grossing film of the year.”

Visual-effects supervisor Scott Farrar was in charge of turning Industrial Light & Magic's computers up to 11 to create the new characters and told reporters that the sequel features 40 new characters. That and the increased resolution of the characters for new IMAX footage nearly exhausted ILM's render farms: After one hard night of rendering computer-generated footage, some of the hardware actually exploded.

• Sold-out midnight show times (on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning) can be found all across the U.S.A., in cities such as New York, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Albuquerque, Denver, Houston, Nashville, Orlando, Colorado Springs, Tulsa, Fresno and Buford, Georgia.
• Exhibitors are continuing to add 3:45 a.m. or 4:00 a.m. show times on Wednesday morning to meet the fan demand.
• Currently, the film is selling twice as many tickets on Fandango as the original Transformers sold at the same point in that film’s sales cycle (two days before release date).
• The movie currently represents 87% of today’s ticket sales
• And as we noted yesterday, TF 2 showings at 500+ theaters in China are sold out 1.5 weeks in advanced.

• He hasn’t read any reviews (good or bad ones) or viewed at the Rotten Tomatoes meter.
• He will be having a TF2 premiere for the Pentagon later this week at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Imax.
• He will the visit Walter Reed Medical Center and visit our vets and troops.
• On a side note, the forest scene with four bots fighting was shot in New Mexico. I feel dumb not knowing NM has lush forests.
• And last but not least, 500+ theaters in Shanghai are sold out 1.5 weeks in advance for TF2. Click here to see Chinese TF fans show their Bumblebee love. (mirror and more photos)

There's a race to finish before sunset, but a craft services worker shows up with a pickup full of fresh pizzas. He is swarmed by the crew, until Bay hops off a golf cart he is steering and hollers: "Get those (expletive) pizzas the (expletive) out of here!"

Hah, love press how they spin. Never said it - just wanted a vacation is more to the point. And no I don't read the good or the bad reviews.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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!

• 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!

• 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.

• 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

So ambitious are some of the scenes, that Bay has made it into the Guinness Book of Records for the biggest explosion on film with actors present. That shot was filmed in New Mexico.

But the real star of the movie is director Michael Bay. Endowed with the swagger of a rock star, his reputation for grandiosity precedes him. Nonetheless, he is always entertaining in person, and boasts a resume that includes The Rock, Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys, and Armageddon, evidence of his penchant for blowing things up bigger and louder than anyone else. In short, to borrow from Spinal Tap, Bay turns the action up to 11.

Outside of the US, the movie was shot in Paris, Jordan, and Cairo. "I take you to places that have never been shot in a movie. The top of Petra has never been put on film, period. King Abdullah II let us take 36 helicopter loads of military men up there. We were able to use a crane, so we take the viewer on aerial shots of the pyramid that even National Geographic never got permission to do," he says. "They've all tried," he says again, making his point. "When John Turturro was filming on the pyramid, he had a tear in his eye. I said, 'Why are you crying? What's going on?' He said, 'You just don't get to do this in movies. You don't get to shoot in a place that's 4000 years old."' So, how was the big shot from Hollywood able to convince Middle Eastern royalty to let him have his way? "Because I'm a smooth talker," he jokes. "No, seriously, the Prince and the King of Jordan were big fans of Transformers. That helped."

Security in the Middle East is obviously an issue, and consequently, arrangements for the cast had to be made. But according to Fox, it was Bay who required more security than any of the film's stars. "When we landed in Jordan or Egypt, Shia and I shared one car with the driver who was also the security guard. Michael's car was flanked by six other security vehicles to make sure he got to the hotel safely," she says. Now you can see why he's regarded as a rock star. Fox adds, "It was like they were driving the president."

• 81% of respondents say Megan Fox is the one star they're most excited to see in the new movie.
• 76% say they are fans of director Michael Bay.
• 72% say the IMAX presentation of Transformers 2 will be an important part of their moviegoing experience.
• 71% of respondents are 18-34 years old; 68% are male.

• Commentary by director Michael Bay
• Theatrical trailer(s)
• "Making the Boom & Bang in Bad Boys" Documentary
• "Damage Control" featurette uses angles feature to analyze special effects explosions
• Music Videos: "Shy Guy" by Diana King, "So Many Ways" by Warren G, "Five O Five O" by 69 Boyz
• Isolated music score
• Production notes
• Widescreen anamorphic format