Having grown up in the 80s and being a huge fan of the Transformers toys I can admit to wanting to punch Michael Bay in the face over the horrible Transformers films. Bay and his crew were on the set of the latest installment in the franchise and were filming in the streets of Hong Kong, when Bay and his crew were attacked by four “drugged up punks.”
Bay said of the attack, “The story… being passed around is not all true! Yes, some drugged up guys were being belligerent a—- to my crew for hours in the morning of our first shoot day in Hong Kong. One guy rolled metal carts into some of my actors trying to shake us down for thousands of dollars to not play his loud music or hit us with bricks.”
Apparently, the four assailants were demanding a payment of $12,900 for the “inconvenience” caused by Bay and his crew as they filmed Transformers: Age of Extinction on the streets of Hong Kong. Bay said when he and the crew refused to be extorted the assailants became violent and the police ultimately came in arrested the men.
Bay said, “Every vendor where we shot got paid a fair price for our inconvenience, but he wanted four times that amount. I personally told this man and his friends to forget it we were not going to let him extort us. He didn’t like that answer. So an hour later he came by my crew as we were shooting, carrying a long air conditioner unit. He walked right up to me and tried to smack my face, but I ducked (and) threw the air unit on the floor and pushed him away. That’s when the security jumped on him.”
What’s more interesting to me than a group of people wanting to smash Michael Bay in the face is that vendors in the area where they were shooting made somewhere in the area of $3000 for the inconvenience of the movie filming in the streets outside.
Bay continued, “It took seven big guys to subdue him… He actually bit into one of the guard’s Nike shoes – insane. Thank god it was an Air Max, the bubble (at the front of the shoe) popped, but the toe was saved.”
[via Toronto Sun]
The last two Transformers films, Revenge of the fallen and Dark of the Moon, received terrible scores across the board, …Back in September of 2010, when the Michael Bay helmed Transformers: Dark of the Moon movie was filming, a 26-year-old woman who was hired as an extra was severely injured during a scene. The woman’s name is Gabriela Cedillo, and she was injured when a cable snapped that was towing a stunt vehicle that had no one inside. I remember when this first came to light, I didn’t realize the extent of this woman’s injuries.
The snapped cable ripped through the woman’s vehicle and struck her in the head. The cable moved with enough speed and force to remove about one-third of her skull and a part of her brain. The woman’s legal team alleged that the cable broke due to poor welding process. Apparently, the scene had failed to be filmed the day before, and the legal team alleges the production company was more interested in filming the scene that ensuring the extras were safe.
The injured woman now needs 24-hour a day care, has suffered from hallucinations, memory loss, and has significant cognitive difficulty. She has also apparently lost some of the mobility on the left side of her body, though she can still walk. The court awarded her $18.5 million and part of the award be set aside for monthly disbursements so that she has care for the remainder of her life. Given the fact that the film grossed over $1.1 BILLION, they can probably afford it.
[via The Miami Herald]