Hollywood is abuzz today with news that despite the fact it’s due to start filming shortly, Megan Fox is out of Transformers 3. It’s a surprise because while there have been a few problems between her and director Michael Bay, both of them have always publicly said she’d be back for part three of the robot saga.
Paramount has been rather coy with their announcement, refusing to elaborate beyond that they weren’t picking up her option for the third film, and according to THR, had decided to take the story in another direction. However Shia Labeouf will get a love interest, it just won’t be Fox.
So what happened? Well, the immediate speculation was that Michael Bay had essentially fired Megan. Not known for having the greatest sense of humour, he has been less than pleased at several comments Fox has made about him in interviews, not least when she told Wonderland magazine last year that, “He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is. So hes a nightmare to work for but when you get him away from set, and hes not in director mode, I kind of really enjoy his personality because hes so awkward, so hopelessly awkward. He has no social skills at all. And its endearing to watch him. Hes vulnerable and fragile in real life and then on set hes a tyrant.”
That led to letter from Transformers crew members calling her unprofessional, and Bay saying he wasn’t that chuffed (but was still looking forward to working with her on Transformers 3). It’s also true that Paramount’s Hollywood-speak announcement about Fox not being in the robot movie did smack of them not wanting to say she’d pretty much been fired, instead talking about how replacing her grew out of the story – however it’s difficult not to feel that the story was going to go whatever way Bay pushed it.
Almost immediately Fox’s representatives told People magazine that Megan Fox will not be starring in Transformers 3 It was her decision not to return. She wishes the franchise the best. It’s possible that’s true, but sounds a lot like it’s damage limitation from her camp, trying to brush aside the inevitable ‘she was fired’ rumours. Deadline is adamant her statement is false, that she was fired, and that announcing it so close to the production start date was essentially Michael Bay’s revenge (assuming she hasn’t told earlier, she’ll have had to had refuse other roles that clashed with T3, due to her contract, only now discovering they don’t want her and she’s got nothing to do).
And just to show how fast Hollwood works, rumours started immediately as to who will replace Fox as the Transformers love interest. The Wrap came out first saying it could be Gemma Arterton, quoting a source who says she’s already had talks with Bay about the role (that said, it is true Arterton is one of those people who has to be rumoured for all love interest roles at the moment, whether she’s genuinely up for the part or not). They also name models Bar Rafaeli, Miranda Kerr and Brooklyn Decker, while AICN adds a list from another ‘trustworthy source’ (again mainly women who always pop up in talk about love interests) including Zoe Saldana, Hayden Panetierre, Vanessa Hudgens, Amber Heard, Camilla Belle, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Ashley Greene, Julianne Hough, Jessica Lowndes and English model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.
Whoever it’s going to be, they’ll have to choose pretty quick, as the film goes into production soon.