In an e-mail leaked to gossip site TMZ, it appears director Michael Bay wasn’t too chuffed with the marketing Paramount were doing for Tranformers 2 in early May, describing the print campaign in the US as an “abject failure”. In the May 4th e-mail he was particularly upset that the film seemed to lack the feel of being an ‘event’, saying, “I have been waiting and waiting for the anticipation of an ‘event movie’ to make it into the ‘public zeitgeist’. Right now, we are not an event, we are just a sequel, which is very different. There is no anticipation. Remember back to Spider-Man 2 – it was everywhere.”
However, it seems he changed his mind as in another leaked message, dated June 6th, he thanked Paramount executive, prasing them for “busting your butts and bringing your ‘A Game’ for the release of Transformers.”
You can understand a director being nervous for the release of his movie, but it does appear he may have jumped the gun slightly with his May 4th e-mail. Paramount has had a tough job this summer, with Star Trek and Transformers 2 coming out in quick succession. At the time Bay wrote his first e-mail, the studio was in full force on Star Trek while laying the groundwork for Transformers. In many ways it’s impressive they’ve been able to mount two such all-encompassing marketing pushes in such a short space of time. And he certainly can’t complain now, as Transformers is everywhere.
Paramount now has to turn its attention to G.I. Joe, which doesn’t have as large a pre-existing audience as either Star Trek of Transformers, and has to battle some bad buzz. But going on the evidence of the studio’s efforts so far this year, they may be able to turn that into a major hit as well when it opens in August.