Michael Bay and his Transformers crew comprised a love-hate bond back in the day when he was handling the wheel of the enormous franchise. Although the franchise kept plummeting with every new release under Bay’s direction in the eyes of critics, the movie did great among general audiences, racking in huge numbers, thanks to the Bay’s explosive visual style.
However, crafting the movies, especially the second in the franchise kept getting frustrating for the cast and crew due to the director’s tardiness, resulting in them starting a betting pool to make things fun.
Michael Bay Wasn’t Amused by His Crew Members Making a Game Out of His Tardiness
During the production of the second movie in the franchise, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Michael Bay arriving late to the production process became a daily occurrence. This resulted in the cast and crew members, including Shia LeBeouf and Megan Fox, starting a betting pool, which involved everyone guessing when will the director arrive on set.
LeBeouf explained it “became like our fantasy football”, and they even had an entrance music set for the director like a WWE Superstar, when he eventually arrived on set. The second assistant director, Chris Castaldi, explained,
“We have about 20 people bet, including Shia, who bet 10:30, that’s two hours behind. Megan Fox, 10:10, that’s quite behind. And I gave him the benefit of the doubt and said he’s gonna be right on time at 8:30, clearly wrong. Anyway, winner takes all, official Blackberry time goes, and we have some entrance music for him when he arrives, Hail to the Chief.”
Although it became a fun practice for everyone on set, unsurprisingly, Michael Bay wasn’t quite fond of his crew making a game out of his tardiness, as LeBeouf recalled, “Mike didn’t like that at all.”
The Love-Hate Bond Between Michael Bay and His Transformers Crew
Even though it seems working with the visually gifted director was a pain in the a– for his crew members, it might not be the full case. Despite these occasional disturbances, relating to Michael Bay’s unprofessionalism on sets, most of his crew members from the first Transformers kept on returning to the latter entries in the franchise. According to Josh Duhamel,
“80% of this crew was there from the beginning, from the very first movie. So you see all these faces you worked with almost 10 years ago. Most of this crew is back. People can say what they want about him, but these people love him. They hate him at times, but they also love him.”
Although the Transformers franchise as a whole was never held high among critics, under the leadership of Bay, it kept on turning huge profits for the most part. And with Michael Bay out of the picture, the latest Transformers entry failed to replicate his success.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is available to stream on Max.
Source: Behind the Scenes Featurette
