It Is Official: TRANSFORMERS 3 Will Be 3D!!

Michael Bay may have been against 3D. He still may be against 3D. But his TRANSFORMERS 3 finale WILL be in 3D! Bay himself confirmed that nugget of information to USAToday.

Bay has had a long standing tradition of bashing 3D, but you know what? I think it was all just show. I think as a filmmaker he wants to be cutting edge - his films certainly give that aura. So naturally he will eventually come over to stereoscopic 3D. And he has.

So the big question is: 2D to 3D conversion or native 3D? Does Bay have the guts to shoot in native 3D after all he has said, or will he hand over the reins of his movie to a conversion shop? Time will tell, but my instinct says he will go native 3D. We'll see!

Apparently the movie's storyline involves the US - USSR space race. Interesting.

Bay is quite certain that this pic will be the last: "As a trilogy, it really ends," he says. "It could be rebooted again, but I think it has a really killer ending."

On the box office side, LOOK OUT. This is a franchise finale movie and the first two have done exceptionally well ($709m and $836m worldwide). Add on the 3D premium and guess what? You have the makings of a billion dollar movie and potentially the power to move to third place all-time. Megan Fox or not. More when I get it...

Michael Bay is Not Impressed By 3D Conversion Tests of Transformers Films

Michael here. It seems like Michael Bay is against the idea of converting Tranformers 3 to 3D, and James Cameron is also speaking out against quick conversion jobs.

Check out the below quote from Bay, From Deadline.com:

I shoot complicated stuff, I put real elements into action scenes and honestly, I am not sold right now on the conversion process.... Right now, it looks like fake 3-D, with layers that are very apparent. You go to the screening room, you are hoping to be thrilled, and you're thinking, huh, this kind of sucks. People can say what they want about my movies, but they are technically precise, and if this isn't going to be excellent, I don't want to do it. And it is my choice.... I'm used to having the A-team working on my films, and I'm going to hand it over to the D-team, have it shipped to India and hope for the best? This conversion process is always going to be inferior to shooting in real 3-D. Studios might be willing to sacrifice the look and use the gimmick to make $3 more a ticket, but I'm not. Avatar took four years. You can’t just shit out a 3D movie. I’m saying, the jury is still out.”

And Cameron says: (also from Deadline)

After Toy Story, there were 10 really bad CG movies because everybody thought the success of that film was CG and not great characters that were beautifully designed and heartwarming. Now, you’ve got people quickly converting movies from 2D to 3D, which is not what we did. They’re expecting the same result, when in fact they will probably work against the adoption of 3D because they’ll be putting out an inferior product.

I love how Bay is never afraid to speak his mind about what he thinks is best for his movies. And I agree with Cameron that studios are taking the wrong message from the success of Avatar: Conversions, if they aren't going to harm S3D in the long run, need to be of a high quality.

Of course, my real hope is that we see more films shot natively in 3D. I know Bay says his shooting style is too aggressive for 3D cameras and that, according to Deadline, he found them too heavy and cumbersome for the fast pace action scenes he shoots. However, I think he could definitely find a way to make it work. Look what Nolan did with those huge IMAX cameras on The Dark Knight.

Michael Bay Actively Testing TRANSFORMERS For S3D!!

Jim here. Michael Bay is singing a different tune these days as the AVATAR effect is rebounding off of all major tentpoles the studios are involved in.

If you will remember, Bay had originally told me that 3D was a fad and he thought that he shot too aggressively for 3D. Well he is revisiting that statement right now under what is sure to be studio pressure. It definitely seems he is leaning toward a 3D conversion though.

MTV recently got some comments from Bay on what he has been up to with the franchise and this is what he said about 3D: "It's a process we're testing with some 'Transformers' scenes," he said. "How successful it is with my movie in terms of a lot of real stuff coming out of the frame, real dirt, real complicated little particles coming towards the lens, because hopefully that process will work. I've seen some tests that look great on other movies. I just want to see how it looks on my footage."

We all know that TRANSFORMERS 3 will be in stereoscopic 3D. It really is a moot point by now. Imagine the smiles when you tack on the 3D premium for the already established franchise! Imagine the smiles on us when we see the action in 3D too. :-) It sure isn't about the plot now is it?