Ed Harris is about to reunite with the director of The Rock while starring opposite The Rock. The veteran actor is reportedly joining Michael Bay’s Pain and Gain, the director’s smaller budget departure from the Transformers franchise.

Vulture has the story, and a pretty good rundown of the plot:

[It's] about several boneheaded Miami bodybuilders whose plot to kidnap, rob and murder a wealthy businessman yields decidedly mixed results: The left-for-dead victim recuperates in secret, and then hires a private detective to track down his kidnappers and exact revenge.

Harris is in talks for the detective role. This could very well turn into a situation in which Paramount gives Bay the funding for this passion project in return for the director helming another Transformers film afterwards. Bay has said before that the third film would be his last when it came to the robotic action flicks, but I’d imagine you can only say no for so long when they dump millions of dollars on your lawn as incentive. (Metaphorically, of course. Then again, we ARE talking about Michael Bay, so maybe he’d actually have them do that.)

Johnson is set as one of the bodybuilders. Mark Wahlberg was once in talks to play the other bodybuilder, but there’s no word yet on whether that part has been filled. Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (Captain America: The First Avenger) wrote the script, and with a spring shoot date lined up, we’ll know more about casting soon.

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Update: Bay has addressed the speculation on his official website:

Studio’s are passing rumors but I’m not sure what I’m doing? I know I’m going to do Pain and Gain early spring but that’s it for right now. I’m leaving all my options on the table. I’ve got several Studio meetings in the next two weeks.

While Michael Bay said earlier this year that Transformers: Dark of the Moon would be his last Transformers movie, it’s looking more likely that it won’t be. According to Vulture Bay is in final negotiations to direct a fourth film, but it won’t be the next movie he tackles.

Apparently Bay’s deal with Paramount will be on the condition that he gets to make his passion project Pain and Gain first. It’s a $20m budget thriller which focuses on extortion and abductions in the Florida criminal underworld, and over recent days there’s been speculation that Dwayne Johnson and Mark Wahlberg are circling the lead roles (although Wahlberg may have already passed). Bay has been trying to make the movie since 1999 (it’s based on a three-part New Times story) so it’ll give him an opportunity to take a break from robots.

Vulture says “while Paramount “does not have a closed deal” with Bay, the studio “is not far from closing” on one either, and that an announcement could come as early as next week”. Once/If a deal is struck Bay will shooting Pain and Gain early next year, and then enter production on Transformers 4 in late-2012. Pain and Gain, which has an original draft written by Captain America screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, isn’t too technically complex so Bay could prep T4 while finishing up P & G.

Shia LaBeouf has already said he doesn’t think he has “anything more to contribute” to the franchise so, assuming he doesn’t change his mind; we won’t be seeing Sam Witwicky in the next film. Personally I think it’s time a different director took over and gave us something new, but if Bay returns Paramount will happy knowing they have another billion dollar movie on the horizon.

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A few days ago Hasbo announced their intentions to move forward with Transformers 4, and were in “active discussions” with Paramount, Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg.

Following this Variety ran a report which said Shia LaBeouf won’t be returning, however Jason Statham’s name “has been bandied about by sources close to the production” as the new lead and the plan by Paramount was to shoot Transformers 4 and 5 back-to-back. Now, thanks to the power of the internet, both Jason Statham and Michael Bay have addressed the speculation.

Firstly Statham (who is romantically involved with Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, so was probably a frequent visitor to the Dark of the Moon set) told MTV:

“You know, I don’t know how those things start. You read them. Someone told me about it. [But] the internet is a dangerous place,” he laughed. “There’s a lot of stuff out there.”

Not to say that Statham would be completely opposed to a “Transformers” movie: “I’ve got a lot of stuff in front of me, but Michael Bay is a talented man. This last one just made a billion dollars around the world, so people like his films. He’s a talented man.”

Actors playing coy is nothing new, but director Michael Bay is known for telling things how it is (like he did when Paramount first set a 2011 release date for Dark of the Moon), and he took to his website to deny the speculation.

I am currently not talking to Paramount on T4 and T5 despite reports. I’m looking at a lot of possibilities coming my way right now weighing options. Most likely going to be doing the low budget Pain and Gain, a true story crime thriller. It’s a very quick shoot and quite funny. Also just finishing the 3 disc set of the Transformer trilogy.

Michael

This doesn’t mean Bay won’t enter talks at some point, as i’m sure Hasbro and Paramount will want Bay involved with the Transformers franchise going forward, whether as director or producer.

As for Pain and Gain, it’s a $20m budget thriller which focuses on extortion and abductions in the Florida criminal underworld. I’m sure this will be a breath of fresh air for Bay having worked more than 5 years solidly on the Transformers movies. It’ll also give him the chance to focus more on an actual story, instead of just destroying cities.

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Michael Bay has already said Transformers: Dark of the Moon will be his last Transformers movie and Shia LaBeouf doesn’t think he has “anything more to contribute”, but following the release of the latest movie producer Don Murphy said he was “pretty sure there will be a second trilogy”.

Hasbro, who have made millions from merchandise sales over the past few years, are no doubt interested in continuing the franchise, and Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner said during the company’s conference call today that Hasbro is in active discussions with Paramount, Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg regarding a potential fourth movie.

THR reports that Goldner “hopes to have news to share in the next quarter”, so we can probably expect an announcement regarding Transformers 4 sometime over next few month or early 2012. The involvement of Michael Bay in these discussions doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be directing again, as he could easily remain on-board as a producer and hire another director to guide the next phase of the franchise. Bay could also change his mind and decide to direct again, so we’ll have to wait and see.

Transformers is currently the 4th highest-grossing movie franchise, with a total of $2.6 billion at the worldwide box office. Transformers: Dark of the Moon is the 4th highest-grossing movie of all time (without inflation) behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Titanic and Avatar.

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Following the release of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in 2009 Michael Bay said he wanted a break from fighting robots and planned on making a small budget “Pulp Fiction-type of movie” that was based on a true story.

We didn’t get to hear much about the project though as Paramount set a 2011 release date for Transformers 3, and despite Bay’s plea for a 2012 release instead, Paramount twisted his arm and he started work on Dark of the Moon. Now Bay is robot-free he can return to his “dark comedy”, and he recently confirmed he’ll be making it next.

From MTV:

“I’m still going to do it,” Bay told us at the Moscow premiere of “Transformers.” “I’m going to do it next.”

Bay said that the size and scope of this next project is still fairly small — in the neighborhood of a $20 million budget, he says — and that there will be no 3-D component to the film, despite his recent immersion in the filmmaking technique with “Dark of the Moon.”

The movie currently has the title Pain & Gain and focuses on extortion and abductions in the Florida criminal underworld. I’m sure this will be a breath of fresh air for Bay having worked more than 5 years solidly on the Transformers movies. It’ll also give him the chance to focus more on an actual story, instead of destroying cities and coaxing his leading ladies to sprawl themselves over different modes of transport.

Bay also said he has talked about making Bad Boys 3 with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, but “it’s hard to get our schedules together”, so it might not happen for a few years.

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Dark of the Moon is not only the best entry in Michael Bay’s Transformers saga, it’s also one of the best action movies of the year. Bay does what he does best – make stuff look awesome – but more importantly, the story and characters actually feel important to the film instead of ancillary functions of a purely CGI-driven creation. Ehren Kruger’s script is a perfect match for Bay’s directing style, balancing just the right amount of story with terrific action beats. Though it clocks in around two hours and forty minutes, the last hour is one of the most action packed segments in recent film history.

Let the record show that I believe Michael Bay is a brilliant filmmaker. Allow me to be clear: the man doesn’t necessarily make brilliant films (OK, never), but he’s a craftsman of the highest order who is able to accomplish things that no other director in Hollywood can. He has made an art of shooting helicopters, explosions, chase scenes, and destruction. He uses his actors as chess pieces in a larger game, and if you’re willing to play that game along with him, you’re going to have a hell of a good time.

One of the many reasons the second film, Revenge of the Fallen, didn’t work that well for me was because (and I realize this may sound crazy) there was an overabundance of robots. It was nothing but gnashing metal and mechanisms, a soulless piece of work that reeked of problems due to the then-in-full-swing Writers Guild of America strike. Dark of the Moon corrects all of these issues, boiling down the number of Transformers to the essential players and avoiding unnecessarily complicated mythologies.

The action in this film is jaw-droppingly impressive. The opening scene, an epic (and I don’t use that word lightly here) battle between the Autobots and Decepticons on their home world, rivals any space battle from any of the Star Wars films in the realm of size and scope. Much of this credit should be given to ILM for creating the visual effects, which, aside from being gorgeous, are easy to comprehend and immensely complicated. I normally don’t put much stock in the Oscars, but if the Academy fails to acknowledge the incredible effects work done in this movie, they truly are an irrelevant organization.

The reason I believe the action works so well in Dark of the Moon is because Bay essentially took scenes from the original Transformers and improved upon them. There is a fantastic highway car chase sequence (among the director’s best, an accomplishment in itself) that’s basically a more involved version of a similar scene in the first film. Same goes for the final 20 minutes, in which Shia LaBeouf runs through a huge city against all odds toward a piece of alien technology. Though some may find this a bit repetitive, I have absolutely no problem with it: since these scenes are all bigger and more bombastic than the first film (there are District 9-type alien ships floating above Chicago this time, and FAR more destruction and chaos in the streets), the movie doesn’t feel like a poor imitation of something we’ve already seen. Bay’s use of live action 3D here is phenomenal, and best used in a base-jumping sequence that was shot practically with the same technology that James Cameron invented for Avatar.

Rosie Huntington-Whitely is a step up from Megan Fox, and even though Rosie’s character isn’t quite as involved as I would have liked, she’s still a tenfold improvement from Fox’s Mikaela Banes. Rosie is definitely a “Michael Bay girl” (women in his movies should have their own classification, like Bond girls) and therefore isn’t relied on as much as the male protagonists, but for what it’s worth, I liked her a lot. She gives Sam Witwicky added motivation for self-improvement, and her presence seemed to insert a jolt of energy into what could have been a tired performance from Shia (who I’d imagine is getting sick of this character by now). And as a longtime LaBeouf fanboy, it should come as no surprise to that I was a big fan of his schtick here. He’s a true movie star in my mind – tremendously watchable and easily foreseeable as the next big A-list powerhouse in line with DiCaprio.

Dark of the Moon also succeeds in pulling together a strange collection of character actors to fill in the human roles in the movie, including John Turturro, Frances McDormand, Ken Jeong, Patrick Dempsey, Alan Tudyk, and the always-entertaining John Malkovich. I’ve heard complaints that the comedy didn’t work for many people, but I laughed a lot and found almost everyone enjoyable to watch. The exception, surprisingly, was McDormand, an actress I normally like, but found severely annoying after her first five minutes on screen. Even Ken Jeong was fun to watch, though he was acting as an amalgamation of every character he’s ever played.

In my review of the original Transformers, I wrote that I had “never seen so much debris in my life,” and now it falls on me to update that statement: Dark of the Moon now holds the record for the most debris of any film I’ve ever seen. Even if you’re not in it for the whole thing, the last forty-five minutes stands as one of the most impressive visual spectacles to hit theaters in a long time. Every other summer action film – Thor, Green Lantern, X-Men: First Class, Super 8, even Fast Five – must bow down to Michael Bay as the king of the summer blockbuster. When Bay is at his peak, nobody does it better. Until next time…

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Transformers: Dark of the Moon will be released later this week and is expected to make a stupid amount of money. In case you aren’t one of those currently planning to be a spectator to some robot warfare this weekend Paramount have released a new trailer to get you pumped. There’s quite a lot of new footage, but it only lasts a minute long and there’s nothing spoilery.

Watch below:

Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, and John Turturro are back for the third outing, with Peter Cullen returning as the voice of Optimus Prime and Hugo Weaving returning as the voice of Megatron. Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley will be replacing Megan Fox as the female lead, playing Sam Witwicky’s new love interest Carly.

In this movie, the Autobots and Decepticons become involved in a perilous space race between the U.S. and Russia, and once again human Sam Witwicky has to come to the aid of his robot friends. LaBeouf, who admitted he wasn’t impressed with the second film, said “there’s going to be a lot of death, human death. This time, they’re targeting humans,” and says “It’s going to be the craziest action movie ever made, or we failed.”

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One of the major complaints about 3D is the dimness created when you put on your 3D glasses. Transformers: Dark of the Moon director Michael Bay has taken this issue into account, and both he and Paramount have decided to send out 2000 special brighter digital prints for when the movie hits screens later this month.

From Variety:

For “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” Paramount and Michael Bay have gone beyond simply asking exhibs to turn their lamps up to proper brightness. Par is taking the unprecedented step of releasing a special digital print aimed at delivering almost twice the brightness of standard 3D projection — even more brightness than the dual-projector Imax Digital theaters.

By releasing the enhanced digital prints, which have been mastered and color graded for the extra brightness, Par is pushing the 3D envelope even farther than James Cameron and Fox did on “Avatar.”

“We want the best presentation possible,” said helmer Michael Bay in an email to Variety. “We have created a special version with extra sharpening, color and contrast. It is a superior look in the format. The brighter the image, the brain processes in a different way (sic) and the result sharpens and makes it more vibrant.

“We did many studies on the formats for presentation and I found this to be the best result,” said Bay.

So now even more decisions have to be made. Will you see Dark of the Moon in 2D or 3D? If you’re going for 3D, do you hope to get a brighter print? Will you be taking sunglasses as well as 3D glasses?

Transformers: Dark of the Moon hits June 29th, and you can watch the 3D trailer below:

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When it was announced that Megan Fox wouldn’t be returning for Transformers 3 a few weeks before filming was set to begin there were conflicting reports as to why. Did Michael Bay fire the actress, or did Fox walk? We’ve heard bits here and there over the past year, but now Shia LaBeouf has given a pretty frank and honest explanation.

From the L.A Times:

“Megan developed this Spice Girl strength, this woman-empowerment [stuff] that made her feel awkward about her involvement with Michael, who some people think is a very lascivious filmmaker, the way he films women,” LaBeouf said. “Mike films women in a way that appeals to a 16-year-old sexuality. It’s summer. It’s Michael’s style. And I think [Fox] never got comfortable with it. This is a girl who was taken from complete obscurity and placed in a sex-driven role in front of the whole world and told she was the sexiest woman in America. And she had a hard time accepting it. When Mike would ask her to do specific things, there was no time for fluffy talk. We’re on the run. And the one thing Mike lacks is tact. There’s no time for [LaBeouf assumes a gentle voice] ‘I would like you to just arch your back 70 degrees.’”

Fox must have become tired of being told to lean suggestively over different modes of transportation. It was pretty clear what Bay’s ‘style’ was when he started test-screening for Fox’s replacement. They were all models. He wasn’t interested in acting talent, it was all about looks.

I think people should give Rosie Huntington-Whiteley a shot (don’t judge a book by its cover and all), but the fact Paramount haven’t shown much of her speaking and acting in the trailers isn’t encouraging. Fortunately Whiteley seems to be good at all the other stuff she’s asked to do, as Shia explained:

“Rosie comes with this Victoria’s Secret background, and she’s comfortable with it, so she can get down with Mike’s way of working and it makes the whole set vibe very different,”.

I’m sure there many who don’t mind seeing aesthetically pleasing females rolling around in their summer blockbusters, but there’s something quite sad about an actress having to quit a film because the director just wants her to ‘be looking fine’. But then again, Fox did decide to play a prostitute in Jonah Hex.

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We heard earlier today that the world would be getting Transformers: Dark of the Moon two days earlier on June 29th, and now Michael Bay’s official website has released a new trailer for the film showing off some of the potentially cool 3D scenes. It’s similar to the theatrical trailer, just with some new action-filled footage.

Watch below:

Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, and John Turturro will be back for the third outing, with Peter Cullen returning as the voice of Optimus Prime and Hugo Weaving returning as the voice of Megatron. Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley will be replacing Megan Fox as the female lead, playing Sam Witwicky’s new love interest Carly.

In this new movie, the Autobots and Decepticons become involved in a perilous space race between the U.S. and Russia, and once again human Sam Witwicky has to come to the aid of his robot friends. LaBeouf, who admitted he wasn’t impressed with the second film, said “there’s going to be a lot of death, human death. This time, they’re targeting humans,” and says “It’s going to be the craziest action movie ever made, or we failed.”

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