Transformers Cast Announced: Writers Web Chat Summary

Sorry for being late in posting this, life got in the way. Without further ado, the highlights of the today's chat with the writers of the Transformers.

Autobot Cast:
Optimus Prime (known)
Bumblebee (known)
Jazz
Rachet (known or at least hinted at in by Megan Fox)
Ironhide

Decepticon Cast:
Megatron (known)
Starscream (known)
Brawl (known)
Barricade
Bonecrusher (known)
Scorponok (known)
Frenzy
Blackout

Character descriptions:
- Mr. Orci said, "every society has that noble king. That King Arthur."
- Bumblebee is the "same underdog, same G1 character we know and love." and that despite being a Chevrolet Camaro "The clothes don't make the man." Be aware that Hasbro had approached BMW to make a Bumblebee Alternator/Binal-Tech toy but they declined as they did not want to be associated with war toys. I am betting that policy extended to the movie.
- Jazz's attitude is "can't do something with style it's not worth doing at all."
- Rachet continues to be the medic of the group but will not match is Gen One alt mode (good call, his alt mode was ugly even then).
- Ironhide remains the gutsy muscle of the group (hopefully new alt mode too) and make "any Transformer bust an O-ring just with his stare."
- Megs will be explored beyond just the usual evil, destroy this and that mentality.
- Starscream will continue to try "to best Megatron."
- Brawl is an "extremely pissed off Decepticon" and is based on other iterations of the Transformers (not sure which one) which may continue in sequels.
- Bonecrusher is basically Megatron's willing slave.
- Barricade os the Saleen Mustang police car seen here and who likes to hunt down the Autobots.
- Scorponok is closest to the Beast Wars iteration with a "little bit of flavors from the other things."
- Frenzy is the replacement Soundwave. The alt mode will be a stereo. Before you moan, remember that the goal is pseudo realism, so could you take seriouslyseriousily as some 3 foot tall Decepticon? I couldn't. Better to not do it at all if can't do it right, so good decision in my opinion.
- Blackout is the EMP guy. Has the weapons to knock out most electronic items, which of course means uh ohs for the military and the Autobots.

Q&A portion:- The writers grew with G1 so they believe they are very familiar with the Transformer universe.
- They use the toys to help figure out the words that fit the character.
- The movie does not require to audience to be familiar with the TF universe but there will be references that fans will understand.
- The ratio of characters is greater then the rumors 70% humans, 30% robots. How much greater was not indicated. Humans do have a strong part as the approach is Jurassic Park in the awe of the first interaction with sentient machines on a grand scale.
- "There is no cheating. No mass shifting." (hince why no Soundwave)
- The reason for more Decepticons then Autobots is to emphasize that in order for the Autobots to triumph, they would need to "use togetherness, unity, [and] friendship."
- The hate/hate more relationship between Megatron and Starscream will be honored.
- For weapons, in robot mode, mostly the pulse kind, in alt mode, whatever matches that mode such as missles, bullets etc.
- For voice actors, "everybody you would want to be considered is being considered."
- To close the chat, a mention was of an upcoming contest - Write a line for Optimus Prime. The site for it will be live in a few weeks and the winner will have their line spoken by Optimus.


Thanks to TFformers.com for the summary which you can read here.

Transformers Cast To Be Announced during Webcast

Transformers Official Website will have an exclusive live Q&A chat with movie writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci at 11 AM PST/ 1 PM EST Friday. The full release from the website:

We will be having an exclusive live online Q&A webcast with Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci - writers of The Transformers; where they will announce ALL of the Transformers appearing in the film. This is your opportunity to get answers to the questions you have all been asking.
The Q&A Webcast will take place on Friday, August 18 2006 at 11:00 AM PST. The event will be hosted on Yahoo.com and fans will have the opportunity to email their questions to Alex & Roberto who will respond live via streaming video.

As a special thank you to the members of the Transformers Boards you can ask your questions ahead of time. Send an email with either your name or forum user name, city and question to:

questions@transformersmovie.com

The link for the Q&A will be available tomorrow at 10:45AM PST from:

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/transformers.html

Hopefully I can get in on it and will post all about. If not, well I am sure I can find some websites to cannibalize from to summarize the whole deal here.

Don Murphy on Casting Peter Cullen

Transformers producer Don Murphy has once again shared some of his viewpoints on Transformers the movie over on his forum. Most interesting bit (for me anyway) is "I got to spend the early part of the week with a lifesize, gigantic Megatron which was surreal and so cool you’re all jealous." Yep I am jealous.

and then the Cullen thing. As you all know when we started this grand experiment two years ago, Cullen and Welker were the ONLY Thing you gave me any consensus on. I’m serious, because I read everything you write, no matter how shitty. And if someone suggested something, half of you would shout it down. And the ONLY thing you overwhelmingly agreed on was that Prime should sound like Prime and Megatron should sound like Megatron. Which makes sense, especially since both actors are alive and well. So I pushed your agenda. As some of you know, that was not an easy one. My own partner advocated celebrity voices. Then I showed him the results of your guys’ input and he immediately joined the bandwagon. Ian Bryce came to the show well in to the process and saw the results and supported immediately. John Rogers needed no prodding god bless his pointed head. One or two Dreamworks executives also supported from relatively early on. The interesting thing is that the director never gave an opinion any way. He had a lot of us telling him that there was no choice, really, the fans had spoken. But he had Skorponok and a lot of people at Dreamworks and Paramount FIGHTING actively not to do it. The forces of Cullen kept the push going. Several weeks he came in and auditioned, which was all anyone could ask the director to do. Then he came back for a meeting. And now, Optimus Prime has his voice back. And there is much rejoicing.

before you negativists start asking wotup with Welker, hey we are all working on it. Fact is I was told he was harder to arrange audition time with and his schedule--- hell I don’t know. No one wants Cullen without Welker. I will not say that the director has made the decision because he hasn’t.

My gut tells me that Michael Bay weighs every decision QUITE STRONGLY. You have to remember that. HE finally okayed Cullen once HE was convinced. And should Welker happen, as I know everyone hopes, it will happen when he can make the decision. Which, quite frankly, is not an urgent decision to make at this moment.

The entire post is worth reading, click here. Does this mean when it was reported that Peter Cullen auditioned for the role and Don Murphy said "don't put words in my mouth", he was covering up this reveal for comic-con? If so, bravo man. Good play.

The Voice of Optimus Prime is ....

Peter Cullen!

At the San Diego Comic-Con Paramount Panel, right at the end, it was announced who would be the voice of Optimus Prime for the Transformers movie in 2007. In a generous nod to the fans, Peter Cullen, the original voice of OP for a generation of TransFans, has been cast as the voice.

I was expecting news such as a few images, discussions of the plot, maybe a reveal of the Transformers in the movie. Nice information but mostly shrug worthy. Instead you get something that for Transformers fans probably caused a collective orgasm of glee even if for most outsiders, its a shrugworthy piece of news. Shows sometimes the small stuff can have as much impact as the big.

As for those that may not know, Peter Cullen is the voice that you hear anytime you think Optimus Prime. He voiced the character throughout the 80's in the series and the cartoon movie.

Additional little tidbits came up in a live interview on G4 for their "Transformers Exclusive" (not sure which was first, them or the panel) where Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura made it official. During the interview, he indicated that the announcement of who the voice of Megatron is will occur during post-production. Does that mean he is already cast? Hmm.

Also, Lorenzo shared his belief of how the live action has an advantage over the animated cartoons, "We are going to be able to do things the animated series could never do. The Transformers can have more moving parts, because they can move better, therefore they can fight better, they can do more things and they can blow up more things."

Give credit to show hosts Olivia Munn and Kevin Pereira for attempting to dig more dirt out of him. They tried to get him to confirm internet rumors ("some are true") and reveal alt modes and did more or less confirm that the Optimus Prime pick is true ("...he is a big semi").

So there you go. Nice reveal but man those TF producers are doing an awesome job of keeping the information tight. Darn it.

A Transformer Voice Has Been Cast

IMDB.com has updated the Transformers movie entry to show that Mark Ryan has been cast...as a voice. Voice for what you ask? No one is telling, not even him on his website, "I can't say too much as we're all sworn to secrecy and the project's script and imagery concepts are being very closely guarded by the producers. I'm on set, interacting with the actors in a most unusual way and having a great time doing it!"

Not a clue who this person is, picture doesn't ring a bell so just for giggles and based on various set reports on what is being filmed, it seems about the only Transformer that has been so far is Bumblebee, so that's my guess on who he is the voice for. Not entirely a shot in the dark but not based on any concrete information at this time either.

(source)

Peter Cullen Audition Confirmed - Rejected!

Don Murphy has posted once again on his boards about Peter Cullen. In it he denies the Peter Cullen audition:

I never confirmed ANYTHING of the kind. Nada.
Someone else posted it.
I made fun of them.
DO NOT PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH.

Seems like a reasonable mistake to make considering on he previously said "absolutely true, when I feel you can handle the truth I will tell you." Upon review of the thread as a whole, its jokey tone indicates its was a misreading on my part so for that I apologize. So consider the Peter Cullen audition as a fun but unsubstantiated rumor.

Hopefully Don Murphy will be so kind as inform the fans when (or if) the audition it does occur if for no other reason it will give us something to b%$^# about if Peter later doesn't get the role.

Peter Cullen Audition Confirmed

Don Murphy has confirmed over on his boards that Peter Cullen, the original voice for Optimus Prime, has auditioned for the role in the live action movie.

Now this only means that the producers, director, etc are open to the idea of the original voices, not guaranteeing their use. There are political and financial pressures that have to be taken in consideration. Realistically, if some A-list actor shows interest and voice is good enough, they would be fools to pass that up.

In animation, usually the voice actors are done first and the animation (or CGI) are done after to make sure that the mouth movements match. Since your looking at giant robots, therefore giant faces and mouths, its probably in their best interest to have the cast nailed by the time they finalize those portions of the CGI. My thinking is they are hoping the teaser trailer might get the attention of bigger fish.

More information about Peter Cullen's long career is here and here.

UPDATE: Consider this "confirmation" to be no longer confirmed as posted here.

Tyrese Gibson confirms casting, budget

Over at MTV.com, Tyrese Gibson confirms that he has been cast in the Transformers movie, saying "I grew up on 'Transformers". Also leaked that the budget is $200 million dollars which has quickly become the norm for big summer movies (remember when $200 Titanic was scandalous?). He is one of the cast members thats filming the opening sequences involving Skorponok at Hollaman Air Force base in New Mexico so he is probably playing a military character named Epps. Beyond that, Tyrese shared nothing else about the script. His IMDB profile is here if want more information about him.

New Cast Member Added

According to the hollywood reporter, the cast of the TF movie has grown by one. Ronnie Sperling has joined the cast as a lead scientist who probably does science jargon in regards to the TFs. Don't have clue who is but click here for his imdb.com entry.

Witwicky Sr. Cast

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the role of Sam "Spike" Witwicky's father has been cast. Kevin Dunn is set to be the father that helps Sam buy his first car/Transformer. You might have a "oh yeah him" moment as he has done roles in many TV shows and movies.

2 More Join the Cast

According to DarkHorizons.com, 2 more cast members have been added to TF human cast. Rachael Taylor is cast as Maggi Marconi, a code breaker. Amaury Nolasco will be cast an Army officer. Tyrese Gibson is still in negotations to join the cast and another Army officer.

Casting Confirmations

Most of the human cast of characters for the Transformers have been confirmed. "Stax reports that Jon Voight, Michael Clarke Duncan, Bernie Mac, Tyrese, John Turturro, Josh Duhamel, Rachael Taylor, Megan Fox and more have joined Michael Bay's big-budget adaptation of the classic cartoon."

Whats that mean overall? Nothing really except they are on target to start filming towards the end of May. Also it means they are not blowing their wad on casting...at least so far. Means more moolah for FXs. Still have the voices to cast and depending on who they are aiming for in star wattage, time will tell.

Transformers Cast Announcement

IGN.com has a TF exclusive announcing most of the human side of the cast for Transformers the movie. The actual Transformer voices are still unknown.

April 20, 2006 - IGN FilmForce has learned which actors are poised to join the previously announced Shia LaBeof in the cast of the DreamWorks-Paramount live-action feature film version of The Transformers. (LaBeof will star as "Sam," the unlikely teen hero of the movie.) IGN has confirmed through multiple sources that Oscar winner Jon Voight is in talks to reunite with his Pearl Harbor director, Michael Bay, as "Keller." A casting notice online describes Keller as the U.S. Secretary of State. Voight and LaBeof previously starred together in Holes.

Another Bay veteran, Armageddon's Michael Clarke Duncan, is closing in on the role of "Figueroa." This character is described in a casting notice posted at Sneak Peek TV as being "Dominican by way of the Louisiana Bayou. Chief Warrant officer in the Army. Spirited fellow who loves to sing. Close team member of Lennox."

And who is Lennox? Sources indicated that Vegas star Josh Duhamel has a lock on the role of the young military commander.

Bernie Mac is the frontrunner for the role of "Bobby Bolivia." A casting notice said Bolivia "could sell ice to an Eskimo. Tries to get Sam to buy a car. Your typical wheelin' dealin' used car salesman."

IGN has also learned that the following actors are being lined up for roles: Tyrese as "Epps"; John Turturro as "Simmons"; Rachael Taylor as "Maggie," previously described as a super-hot and super-smart codebreaker for the government; Megan Fox as "Mikaela," referred to in a casting notice as Sam's love interest; Travis Van Winkle as "Trent"; and John Robinson as "Miles."

Source: filmforce.ign.com

Michael Duncan Clark - Know him as the massive black guy from Green Mile and Sin City
Bernie Mac - If don't know him you have been under a rock somewhere
Tyrese - Up and coming actor from Four Brothers and 2 Fast 2 Furious
Rachael Taylor - Beats me, never heard of her.
Megan Fox - Ditto
Travis Van Winkle - Shrug
John Robinson - No idea

Normally such a comprehensive list for a cast that is not yet announced would leave me skeptical, but so far all the leaked information has been on the nose and this list has so many "who?" on it that its become credible. Usually the made up cast lists have so many big names on it you can smell the BS after a quick scan.

Thanks for the heads up Bill. Above pic is Megan Fox.

Update:
Forgot about Jon Voight, who is the "Cowboys at Midnight" reference from previous post. He may be cast as the Secretary of State.

Josh Duhamel getting cast?

Apparently Josh Duhamel, of NBC's Las Vegas, admitted on the Ferrell Show on Howeard 101 that Michael Bay offered a role in the Transformers movie. This is from AllSparks.com which was accurate on the new regarding Shia as Spike.

Based on the human descriptions we have, whose reliability is unconfirmed, he sounds like he would fit the role of Cpt William Lennicks. After all on Las Vegas, he plays a guy with a military background and Hollywood is fond of pigeon-holing people.

Spike Witwicky goes live

Don Murphy has pretty much made it official by posting on his board an article from Variety or some other magazine that Shia LaBeouf is in negotiations to star in Transformers. He will be cast as Spike Witwicky, 18 year whose first care is an Autobot. Judging by past movies, Shia will be brown haired earnest irritant versus the blondish earnest irritant from the cartoons. Does that mean one of the female cast will be Carly? And what about his dad Sparkplug? I have my fingers crossed that one or neither makes the movie other then as a wink-wink cameo.

Read the "official" post here.

For those saying "who the @#$@ is Shia LaBeouf", chances are you will recognize the face just not the name. He starred in Holes, Dumb and Dumberer, the Project Greenlight movie The Battle of Shaker Heights, I, Robot, Constantine, and the Greatest Game Ever Played. Before pre-judge him, this is one of those times where I think you have to reserve judgment. Spike was such a bland character in the cartoons that really how much like him or hate him will be based entirely on how he is written and acted. Its not like he is a Peter Parker or Clark Kent.

More about Shia LaBeouf check out imdb.com and wikpedia.

FX hirings

Another report of hirings, of note is that three of em have won Oscars for special effects.

People hired for this and that

Update at donmurphy.com

Start building sets on location in a week
Start building sets in LA in less than a month
ILM now starting to build our CG robots
Costume Designer - Deb Scott (Titanic)
Assistant Director - Simon Warnock (Lord of The Rings)
Stunt Coordinator - Kenny Bates (Pearl Harbor)
Cinematographer - Mitch Amundsen (Eight Below, lots of Bay films)

Casting begins

Ah gots to love those weekly updates on donmurphy.net. The latest is that casting has begun with "at least one XL star" showing interest. What XL is defined as of course can be extremely variable. Technically cause of her name recognition Paris Hilton could be defined as XL star as a for instance but lets hope thats little idea dies here. Also filming is slated for June 1st.

George Clooney as Optimus?!?

Apparently a month or there was a rumor that George Clooney would be the voice of Optimus Prime for the TF movie. Well as is the case with many rumors, it was false. Lets all breathe a sigh of relief.