At the 2007 Saturn Awards Transformers producer Tom DeSanto said he feels like he’s “the kid in the toy box who's pulling out his action figures and making movies out of them." Seriously, who wouldn’t want to be able to make a film about their favorite childhood playthings?
DeSanto's been working on bringing Transformers to the big screen for five years and said that as of mid-May the film is almost at picture lock. “We're scoring the movie, doing the final mixes and it's looking great,” said DeSanto. “We tested the movie a little over a week ago and it was great - higher than any other of Michael [Bay's] movies. It's good, everybody's excited. It's a great time right now because in a summer of sequels, we're going to be bringing something new to the table.”
As with any movie based on another medium, the reaction of fans - both positive and negative - is going to be very strong and very vocal. Transformers fans are no different. They've made their opinions known when it comes to how their favorite robots look in the feature film. Commenting on the design of the robots in Transformers DeSanto explained, “I compare it to the reaction we had from X-Men. It was some people want to stay the traditional route, but as long as you stay true to the heart and soul of what those characters are.. Wolverine is still Wolverine whether he's 6'3" Hugh Jackman or 5'3" Logan from the comic books. That's the key, just staying true to the heart of the characters.”
DeSanto believes he knows the reason behind Michael Bay’s decision to release high-def images of the robots on the Internet. “I think it's to get those images out there so that people start to see these characters as characters and not just gimmicky set pieces.”
There's been a lot of talk (i.e. guesses) about Transformers' running time and since the film's not totally finished, DeSanto couldn’t confirm what the final running time would be. But the test audience saw a cut that was about two hours long. That’s two hours packed with a lot of action. Shia LaBeouf has said there were about 20 set pieces, and DeSanto said the film’s star’s estimate was pretty accurate. “I would say he's probably right on target. You know when you go to Six Flags and there's the new roller coaster that outdoes every other roller coaster? That's going to be Transformers. We're doing things, and the fun this is it hasn't been done before. It's all new stuff.”
Asked how many endings Michael Bay and company tried out for Transformers, DeSanto joked, “We have 48. No, we've got one. It's one ending. It's one story. It's a beginning, middle and end. The ending works. It's great too because yeah, there's going to be giant robots but there's romance in there. Shia has a real emotional storyline that, at the end, you're really rooting for him.”
Films with numbers attached to their titles – particularly the number three – are expected to rule the summer of 2007, with Spider-Man 3 kicking the season off by shattering box office records. But obliterating records isn’t what DeSanto’s aiming for with Transformers. “You know what? I just want a weekend that leaves people happy leaving the movie theaters. If we make the fans happy and we make non-fans happy, we've done our job. The money's great. I think we'll be fine. I don't see any problem with our box office but I'm excited because in a summer of sequels, we're something new.”
Comic book-inspired films and sci-fi movies have really come into their own, and DeSanto’s glad to be a part of helping to legitimize the genres. “It's kind of like the journey we've had with genre films. When we were trying to get X-Men made, nobody wanted to make comic book movies. Batman and Robin had just failed; Marvel was in bankruptcy. I think the genre film has really become legitimate. It hasn't become the sort of castoff it used to be.”
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Directed by Michael Bay and starring Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel and Megan Fox, Transformers launches into theaters on July 4th.
Saturn coverage contributed by Fred Topel.
