I do not believe in Michael Bay’s Transformers. Like many of you, I consider the franchise a bastardization of our beloved robots in disguise. The Bayformers series has offered nothing but an unnecessary amount violence, racism and sex. I do not care for any more films. But… they’re happening anyway. Transformers 4 is rolling out…

As I said, I did not care for the first three Transformers movies. However, I do like Kelsey Grammer, so I’m torn. Oh, wait. Sorry, I forgot to mention… Sideshow Bob has just been cast as the lead (human) villain. According to Deadline, Grammer will play Harold Attinger, an evil counter intelligence agent. He’ll join fellow cast members Mark Wahlberg and Stanley Tucci as well as a few unknowns.

Honestly, who doesn’t like Kelsey Grammer? This is Frasier we’re talking about! And, he was the best part of all of X3, but that’s not saying much.

Even with the awesomeness of this casting followed by the surprise of Pain and Gain (Bay finally did something right!) I cannot get excited for another Transformers movie. I just can’t.

The film is schedueld for release June 27, 2014 [Deadline]

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Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain made about $20 million over the weekend, which isn’t exactly Transformers money. But Transformers 4 is next on Bay’s to do list, and it will star his Pain & Gain leading man Mark Wahlberg, but was Marky-Mark the first choice for the fighting robots sequel? Any innocent question posed to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson on Twitter seems to indicate the answer is no.

Michael Bay offered me Transformers, but I was unavailable due to Hercules. Then Wahlberg was offered the role. #RockTalk @nadydi

— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) April 26, 2013

Naturally, Johnson is a good choice to take over your franchise, he’s been drafted three times to play that part already. As to the logistics, maybe Johnson was too busy to play in Transformers 4, or maybe he scratched his 80s toyline based movie itch with G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Of course, it doesn’t say a lot for Wahlberg if Bay just need some muscle-bound leading man type to fill Shia LaBeouf‘s shoes in the next Transformers movie, but it will be interesting to see what Bay comes up with.

Source: /Film

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Ever since Michael Bay snatched up the big-money Transformers franchise and began churning out sequel after mediocre sequel, there’s been a bit of a resurgence in the ‘Giant Robot’ genre.  Fame may have gone to Bay’s head over the subject, as apparently he made some off-hand comments about other big robot flicks being little more than attempts to copy the success of his movies.  And while the story is that he was speaking of the crappier big robot offerings, such as the god-awful Battleship, the statement rankled Pacific Rim director Guillermo del Toro.  Check out what del Toro had to say in response, below:

We are far, far, far away from that in a very willing fashion. For good or bad, this is my movie. This is my universe and my creation, and I do not create through comparison.

The fights don’t occur in well-lit, supercool, car commercial-looking environments. They occur in the middle of a raging sea storm or in a savage snowstorm. They happen in a universe that is incredibly saturated.

I doubt Bay was trying to piss in del Toro’s cornflakes about Pacific Rim, however.  I mean, even with all his money, Bay has to realize that he doesn’t come anywhere near to having the level of directorial skill that del Toro possesses and that Pacific Rim is going to make Transformers look like… well, it already looks about bad as it can, so I guess that doesn’t matter.

Still, the media felt the need to report it, and so shall we relate it in turn to our fair readers.  I’m sure you’re all smart enough to know what the better big robot movie is, so Bay’s words are pretty much a moot point.

Thanks to blastr for the heads-up.

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There was a time when what could arguably be dismissed as “kids’ stuff” (comics, cartoons, toys, video games) had little or no chance at being adapted into successful, never mind respectable movies. Hell, to make Superman – the most famous and universally recognized comic book character on Earth – into a film people took seriously, they had to put Marlon Brando in the cast and get the author of The Godfather to write the script.

Things have changed: Nowadays studios drool over the chance at getting their mitts on nerdy properties. The children who grew up with cartoons, action figures, and comic books are now the adults buying movie tickets and DVDs/Blu-Rays. Marvel is close to becoming better known as a film studio than a comics publisher, video game flicks are no longer a running joke in the movie business, and cartoons designed to sell children overpriced hunks of plastic are now fodder for summer blockbusters.

Now, however much we as nerds want to see Michael Bay die in a fire for what he did to our sacred Transformers (or what he’s currently doing to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), it’s impossible to argue that the man made serious bank for Paramount. Sure, Bay might bathe in the tears of geeks, but the financial success he’s had is opening doors for live action adaptations of many of the programs we grew up with (some of which probably won’t completely suck).  GI Joe: Rise Of Cobra may have been underwhelming, but its long-awaited sequel is proving to be a smash hit with audiences, critics, and nerds alike. A Robotech adaptation is reportedly in the works, and there’s been a great deal of talk about a Masters Of The Universe live action film that might actually take the subject matter seriously.

But what about the shows from our childhoods that are not quite as well-remembered? Shows that were largely forgotten by all but hardcore ’80s nerds? Could any of them possibly be resurrected as serious, profitable, well-received live action films? Well, here are ten we think might have a shot:

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More news about Michael Bay’s abusive relationship with the Transformers franchise – it looks like the newest installment will be doing some shooting in China.  The new flick will be collaboration between Paramount, Bay and Chinese production companies.  This is not a new thing in movies today, as the Chinese market promises some serious cash flow.  Of course, there are some major hoops to jump through if you want to tap that Chinese wallet and it looks like Bay is ready to sit up, roll over and play dead.

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Paramount is apparently so pleased with the exceptional performance of GI Joe: Retaliation, the long-awaited follow up to the somewhat lackluster GI Joe: Rise of Cobra, that the studio has already greenlit a third installment. Comic Book Movie claims the cast was very enthusiastic about another adventure for the cinematic Joes when they spoke to them at the London press conference. Plus, Variety‘s Andrew Stewart weighed in with this comment on Twitter:

We’ll be sure to keep you informed about any developments concerning this film.

In other Real, American, and Heroic news: A crossover between the GI Joe and Transformers universes COULD end up being more than the fodder for a comic book miniseries, or the fevered dreams of legions of fanboys. Cinemablend discussed the possibility with Retaliation producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura:

I guess it’s possible. I don’t know. I think I probably at this moment, I resist it. I don’t know necessarily why, but I just think there’s so much that’s so rich in the mythologies that I don’t think they need to draw from the other. I think, I didn’t rule it out for me and I think those things have somehow for me, sort of in the past, they made me feel like a little bit cynical exercises in just drawing money out of something.

It’s not to say you couldn’t do it well, but both these properties have such rich mythologies with so many characters, that you could go a lot of movies before you start running out of ideas of what to do. But it’s not to say, if we found the right… I’d hate to set out to do that, but if I heard a story where we went, “Oh my God…,” I could see a story right now about machination, machination of war and that could lead you sort of intrinsically to a Transformer.

Given that both properties are owned by the same company, and their film franchises produced by the same studio, it certainly seems logical that one day they could share a movie. And there’s certainly precedent – films like the Alien vs. Predator franchise, and Freddy vs. Jason have proved the marketability of the concept. Fan support is, of course, beyond any doubt (as long as Jon Chu makes the flick – not Michael Bay).

Sources: Comic Book Movie, Blastr

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Much to the chagrin of fan-boys everywhere, Michael Bay‘s Transformers franchise is continuing, with T4 currently in development. Now, before you enraged bastards evoke a satanic ritual to curse the production, a plot detail has been revealed which may turn heads… in a good way.

The Michigan Film Office announced today that Michael Bay‘s Transformers 4 has been approved for a film incentive from the state.  The film, expected to film this spring in metro Detroit, opens soon after the end of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, where a great battle left a city torn,  but with the world once again saved.

That’s not the eye squinting, beard stroking, worthy news. Details regarding the films big-bad, however, is. Here’s how the Michigan Film Board describes the “plot” (I use the term loosely) for the movie:

As humanity picks up the pieces, following the conclusion of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Autobots and Decepticons have all but vanished from the face of the planet. However, a group of powerful, ingenious businessman and scientists attempt to learn from past Transformer incursions and push the boundaries of technology beyond what they can control – all while an ancient, powerful Transformer menace sets Earth in his crosshairs. The epic adventure and battle between good and evil, freedom and enslavement ensues.

“an ancient, powerful Transformer menace”? My inner Autobot immediately assumes that means… UNICRON, the planet-eater! Man, if Bay did anything like the 1986 Transformers animated movie – which Unicron is famous for – the haters might finally stop hatin’. This is what we want, what we’ve been waiting for! Of course, after seeing what they did to Devastator in the 2nd Transformers movie, I have no hope that it would be done right.

Unicron, or no Unicron: T4 is bound to continue the racism, objectification of women, and gratuitous bodily excrement jokes synonymous with the franchise. I can’t let my inner child continue to hope that Bay might eventually give me the Transformers I long for.

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Every day the internet produces an astounding amount of goodies and gems. Most hilarious, some amusing, but all worth at least a few seconds of your time. We here at Nerd Bastards try to bring you the best bits of news and nerdery the webz has to offer, with a bit of snark thrown in. But sometimes not everything makes the cut. Monday through Friday we’ll be bringing you our inbox leftovers, our forgotten bookmarks, the nerdy bits that simply slipped through the cracks. You can submit items to Nerdy Bits by emailing us at nerdybits@nerdbastards.com.

ABOVE: Ever wonder why you never see Spider-Man with a beard? This is why. It’s the one draw back to having radioactive spider blood. [ObviousWinner]

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Returning to the Transformers franchise after making the “smaller” movie, Pain & Gain, Michael Bay is full of new ideas to restart the franchise with Transformers 4 and lead the way for more Transformers films. I know, I’m sorry, I was hoping they’d stop after the first one, too, but here we are. Having been influenced by the smaller scale of Pain & Gain, Bay said, “we’ve redesigned everything from top to bottom,” for the next installment of Bayformers.

We’re going to start off smaller. There’s a brand new cast. To freshen the franchise we’ve redesigned everything from top to bottom. The history of the first three movies is still there, we start four years later and there’s a reason why we’re meeting a new cast. Mark [Wahlberg] is really excited about it and it’s a great redesign. I said that 3 [which grossed $1.1 billion] was going to be my last one. Paramount was letting me do Pain & Gain and the Transformers ride was opening at Universal and it was bittersweet to think of passing it off. I wanted to set it up on a really sure footing and to bring someone else in on that, it would have been overwhelming.

Yes, because nothing says fresh start than the guy who gave us the first three regrettable Transformers movies.

Bay also stressed this film is not a reboot, in case its being named Transformers FOUR had you wondering about that,

We keep the Transformers the way they were, it’s just four years later. There’s a reason the Transformers are redesigned. We’re trying to broaden the franchise and give it more places to go.

What d’ya think, bastards? Will redesigned bots and new faces get you in the theatre for Transformers 4?

Source: /Film

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Each and every week we scour the Internet for nothing but the best in nerdy art. We leave no digital stone unturned, we poke and prod every nook and cranny of the Interwebz. Why? Because we love you, and we love to bring you weekly feed of nerd art.

On with the dump!

ABOVE: Yes, it’s a TARDIS in the same drawing as the “Firefly-class” spaceship, Serenity, so lose your mind fanboy! In a piece called cleverly named “The Time Job” John Sumrow put together an awesome heist piece – the crew of Serenity stealing the Doctor’s signature transport. You’d think Mal would have nicked the Doctors ginger too, you know… since his is still alive and all… [Nerd Approved]

Hit the jump for The Scarlet Witch, Nerdist and more…
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