Michael Bay: ‘TMNT’ Honcho Livid Over Film’s Australian Premiere


Michael Bay, director of the Tranformers films and producer of the latest reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, was furious yesterday over a poster advertising the TMNT Australian release.

What had Bay so upset? Michael didn’t give final approval for the poster created for the film’s premiere, and it was a poster that was in very bad taste, according to SBS.

The Australian release of Michael Bay’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will be on September 11. The poster that Paramount Picture’s marketing department put together featured an exploding skyscraper with the four heroes in a half-shell diving out of it, and beneath that, the release date was written in numerals: 9/11.

Ouch.

Michael Bay responded thusly:

“When I woke up and saw that, I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ That was a silly, dumb mistake.”

The poster was tweeted by Paramount Pictures and almost immediately removed after scores of fans commented on its poor taste in using an exploding building with the 9/11 release date after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York on September eleventh, 2001.

“Trust me – I yelled at them. Normally everything goes through me, and no one showed me that poster.”

Chances are that Michael Bay did more than yell at them. According to Bay’s leading lady in TMNT, the Hollywood Mogul has a notorious temper and ridiculous work ethic, qualities that may have caused his Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles star, Megan Fox, to refer to him as “Hitler” – a comment that got Fox in plenty of hot water. Tranformers producer Steven Spielberg publicly admonished her and the comment supposedly got Fox fired from appearing in the third Transformers film. According to the Daily Mail, it was actually Spielberg who said enough is enough when it came to Fox’s comments.

Her comments about Michael Bay also inspired ire in the Transformer’s cast and crew. About Fox, Transformers co-star, Shia LaBeouf said:

“She started talking s*** about our captain, which you can’t do.”

The rest of the cast put out a public, open letter on Michael Bay’s website calling Fox “unprofessional,” “tedious” and “dumb-as-a-rock.”

Surprisingly, it was Michael Bay who came to Fox’s defense in a roundabout sort of way, saying tha the public attack on his hand-picked starlet was wrong.

Regarding Fox’s “Hitler” comments, Michael Bay told GQ Magazine,

“I wasn’t hurt, because I know that’s just Megan. Megan loves to get a response. And she does it in kind of the wrong way. I’m sorry, Megan. I’m sorry I made you work twelve hours. I’m sorry that I’m making you show up on time. Movies are not always warm and fuzzy.”

However, apologies seem to have been made all around, and now Fox is firmly back in the Michael Bay stable.

Through lukewarm reviews – see the TMNT review Inquisitr article about that – and Megan Fox’s penchant for telling Transformer and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle haters to “F*** off!” – read about that here – and now this poster blunder, Michael Bay’s TMNT reboot seems to be fraught with problems.

Picture via Fooyoh Entertainment

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