An interesting article for Marina City Online, building complex on State Street in Chicago, suggests that Transformers 3 may have gone over budget during production leading to stunts being cut. A planned stunt for August 8th in Marina City's west tower parking deck that involved throwing four burning cars off the deck but was cut, apparently due to time and budget issues.

Rich Moskal, director of the Chicago Film Office, says it was the film’s director, Michael Bay, who backed out of the stunt. “As far as I know, it was all set to go,” said Moskal Tuesday evening after giving a presentation at DePaul School of Digital Cinema.

“Michael Bay is always trying to do more and more,” he said, “but it was one of those things where they said, ‘do we really need to do this?’” Bay apparently had to get to a location in Detroit, a mansion that was a popular tourist destination and offered a limited opportunity for him to film there. “He had a shopping list and they were running out of time and they were way over budget to be honest with you.”

Bay, says Moskal, remembered Marina City from The Hunter. “The funny thing was, he said, ‘they did one car, I want to do four. And I want them to be on fire. I want there to be four burning cars.’ And it just kind of came down to, how much time do we have and how much more do we really need? And they did some pretty hairy stuff. It’s not like they were starved for yet another spectacle of explosions or flying cars or stuff like that.”

Other scenes for the movie, expected to be released next July, were planned but never filmed. “Their final scene was supposed to be in the reflection of the Cloud Gate sculpture at Millennium Park where they wanted to see the city [on fire] and smoldering.”

The Millennium Park scene was probably cut because that was around the time production shut down for about a week due to the extra being injured in Indiana. It is also possible that the deck scene was repurposed for another location as the description seems to match some of what was filmed at another parking deck location a week later.

The idea of Transformers 3 scenes being cut or altered is not big deal as that is common for any movie. What would be surprising is if the movie is over budget as Michael Bay takes a great deal of pride in getting his movies completed on time and under budget. If Dark of the Moon is currently over budget, will steps be taken to get it back under control by possibly making cuts on post-production decisions with cuts for possible visual effects heavy scenes? Since every second of Transformers robot action is literally 10s of thousands of dollars being spent, there are many different cuts, both big and small, that could be done to get the film budget back on track. Thanks to rumah and Ray for the link.

Update: Michael Bay once again did one of his quick drive-by's on his forum and explained the situation:

Why did I cut the stunt, because the building wanted a $40,000 location fee. I told my producer we are not paying that - Why? Because I like to stay on budget, and I also don't like to get ripped off. So there's the truth. And yes, we are are still under budget today.

Michael

Sorry for the long delay, between linkfests so this one is extra long with more toy reviews and galleries. The highlight is probably a new auction of G1 Transformers scripts and cels. Also have video reviews for new Prime, 'Bee, Jazz, and more.

G1 Transformers and G.I. Joe Cartoons Document Auction
A new auction that seems to have started might be of huge interest to those that have a deep love for the original 80's cartoons as it will contain original shooting scripts, art work, bios, and more from Transformers, Transformers: The Movie, and G.I. Joe. The auction comes from Ron Friedman who developed and wrote for the various properties. Hit link above for the press release details, and click here for the Heritage Auction Transformers results. I wasn't able to find a way to see all that Friedman was selling in one search but doing a simple search on terms like "Transformers" and "GI Joe" brought up interesting results like scripts, audition dialogue, the movie script, paints cells and more cool stuff.
Update:: All Spark is organizing a donation drive to try and buy up these historical Transformers items so that it be be available for the public online instead of lost in some private collection. Any money left over will be donated to charity. If interested, click here for details. Thanks to General Tekno for the heads-up.

Toy Galleries - Highbrow & Fallen | Grapple | Jazz | Wheeljack, Rumble, Frenzy, Scourge, Laser Prime
More galleries to upcoming releases for the Hunt of the Decepticons, Reveal the Shield, and Takara's Transformers United (aka Generations) lines, most of which are repaints. Reveal the Shield still has this odd tendency to re-release Classic 1.0 and 2.0 molds as repaints but not putting under the "Generations" moniker. Not really sure why they are choosing to go with this type of brand confusion as it seems up to this point they had spent years making a clear distinction between movie inspired toys and the rest. No idea if the Takara United molds will make a stateside visit but would be really surprised if they didn't. More Classic toys the merrier so bring on more Reveal the Shield, United, and GenerationsRead More »

Principle photography may have completed (aka lead cast completed their work) for Transformers 3, but that doesn't mean filming is finished. According to On Vacation Locations and Inner City Press, Transformers: Dark of the Moon filmed in the General Assembly auditorium on Saturday.

The middle section of the General Assembly hall was full of extras, in suits and native dress, while a camera on a mechanical arm panned the crowd and then the three faux speakers on the rostrum. From the photo booth on the GA's third floor, Inner City Press heard stage directions, saw the vote tally board lit up.

On Vacation Locations mentions that Dame Judi Dench was spotted but I highly doubt it. Based on the description it sounds like part of the "Autobots - Go Home" plot point that is rumored to include Congress making their presence illegal in the States and now seems to include the UN too. Does that mean Transformers get banned from the entire planet? Or maybe it is for the end of the film and the Autobots are given planetary wide amnesty?

Transformers: Prime debuts in a touch under two weeks from now and The Hub has begun ramping up the advertising push with four videos that highlight Arcee, Bumblebee, Cliffjumper and a human character. There are also two new commercials. The first five episodes star airing on November 26th with a rather creative and confusing schedule.All videos below. Over all while the CGI isn't much of an improvement over Beast Wars from a decade ago; it looks like a show with lots of entertainment potential. If you don't get The Hub (like me), hopefully they will do like a lot of networks nowadays and make them available online. (via Seibertron) Read More »

Hasbro held its "Investors Day" conference call that highlighted some of their upcoming Transformers related projects for the next year or so. TFormers provided the highlights of the call. Many of them we already could guess with a toy line for Dark of the Moon and the "Ultimate Transformers Experience" theme ride that is being built for Universal Parks with Singapore debut of 2011 and Hollywood in 2012. The conference call also verified that three video games are planned around Transformers.

One of them is Transformers Online, an MMORPG that is currently limited to China and other countries in that region for a 2011 release but may be ported for other countries (which ones not detailed). Activision is also working on Transformers: Dark of the Moon game for release around the time of the movie. For those that found the movie related games lacking will be pleased to know that War for Cybertron 2 is scheduled for 2012 release. Thanks to NHLfan for the link.

Gabriela Cedillo is on the verge of finally being released from the hospital according to Hollywood News. The set extra suffered a head injury on the Indiana set of Transformers: Dark of the Moon back in September that resulted in brain damage that required surgery. The update comes from the family attorney, Todd A Smith, who is currently suing Paramount for the accident.

In regards to her care he added, “Gabriela is still in the Rehab Institute of Chicago but she’s about to be released home so she can be taken in for outpatient physical and speech therapy. She’ll have to go in multiple times a week for extensive rehabilitation care. She continues to have paralysis issues on her left side.”

On the whole it sounds like somewhat good news as gives hope that she will eventually make a full recovery but still a long road to go as rehabilitation from these kinds of injuries can take a very long time. Best wishes to her family on a successful recovery.

Tyrese Gibson has tweeted that Transformers: Dark of the Moon has officially wrapped principle photography today in Los Angeles.

His first tweet (around 11am EST) on the subject said:

I'm up. On set with what we all hope to be on the last day of filming of Transformers 3. I will keep you updated!!

This was followed five hours later with:

Confirmed::: Today will be last day of shooting Transformers 3.. Yippy!! God is the greatest .. We made!! Fans we won't let you down!!

Finally at about 8:50pm EST, he made it official:

Ladies and Gents we have officially wrapped the filming of Transformers 3! Cheers to my cast and entire crew! We did it baby!! God bless u!

Congrats to the cast and crew of Transformers 3 for their long and eventful shoot. Now the post-production process begins with editing the film, sound, Industrial Light & Magic and Digital Domain doing their CGI magic and much more. The actors may be done but Bay and company still have a lot more work ahead of them. Thanks to Feris and Ann for the heads-up.