Michael Bay is one of the hardest working directors and in an exclusive interview with Rolling Stone at his Miami home, Bay found free time to discuss his as of yet untitled Transformers 5 project and his latest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
Between his producing duties and directorial work, Bay usually has a half-dozen projects going at once. Right now, in addition to 13 Hours, he’s doing post-production on the next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which he’s producing and which is due in 2016, and pre-production for the next Transformers, which he’s directing for summer 2017. “I’m doing Transformers … 5, is it?” Bay says, temporarily losing track. He shakes his head. “I’ve taken on a lot of work.”
After Bay demonstrates to Stone journalist Josh Eells how he prefers to do colour timing, Santa Monica’s Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) appears on a computer monitor,
“Hey, Michael?” one says into the camera. “Are you crawling around on the floor?”
Bay turns around. “Oh, hey.” He stands up. “So, what do we got?”
They start with Ninja Turtles animation. Pablo Helman, a visual-effects supervisor who worked on the Star Wars prequels, appears onscreen and shows Bay the latest version of Krang, a new-to-the-movies villain who is, essentially, a disembodied brain inside a giant robot. “So we’ve eliminated the tentacles,” Helman explains. “Is it too monster-ish?”
“He could have some tentacles,” says Bay. “I just don’t want them coming out of the side. He looks like a stupid octopus.”
Bay only confirms what’s revealed in a previous article on Otakunoculture. As one of the top 6 highest grossing directors in the United States, he is known for his hands-on approach and for being frugal when it comes to film budgets.
Finally, there’s Transformers. They show Bay an underwater rendering of a crash-landed alien spaceship, then a new dump-truck Transformer with a cloak. Neither are up to snuff. “Boy, I’ve got a lot of work to do,” Bay says, shaking his head.
Source(s): Rolling Stone, Josh Eells, TFW2005, and Transformers Generation One G1.
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