Hey everyone, Harry here... I'd like to clarify something here. I, Harry, am not Moriarty - and nearly every day of my life I thank my maker for this. Heh. As for me having some automatic hard-on for Michael Bay - this is partly true. I enjoy BAD BOYS, love ARMAGEDDON and THE ROCK, have a great deal of distaste for PEARL HARBOR - mainly because the film was so goddamn broad in trying to be everything to everyone - while ultimately succeeding in nothing but being pretty... and BAD BOYS 2 - I feel is one of the most wonderfully fascist evil fun flicks embracing right-wing paranoia and running with it. THE ISLAND could be fun as hell, love the cast - but personally I'm more interested in seeing what Singer ends up doing with LOGAN'S RUN. As for TRANSFORMERS - there are few directors that wallow in the joy of things going boom in quite the way that Michael does. Michael gets what sound an engine makes that turn ya on and makes ya drool cool. As for Moriarty not being a big Transformers geek... I think this is just more evidence that Moriarty was never a child. He has just always been a big old fuddy duddy, who loved THE IRON GIANT. Personally... I just want to see Optimus Prime in live action right now. TRANSFORMERS rule, but SHOGUN WARRIORS, GIGANTOR, G-FORCE and STARBLAZERS are kinda what I broke my teeth on... but TRANSFORMERS, it was the bright light of cool around the time Lucas was sucking my life out with DROIDS and EWOKS, where NBC went SMURF crazy - and I was left loving DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, SPIDER-MAN & HIS AMAZING FRIENDS, HE-MAN G.I.JOE and TRANSFORMERS. The last two had the best assortment of stories and characters... and most importantly the best toys. And most of the time, G.I. Joe characters interacted with my Transformers! We'll never get a franchise cross-over though... dammit! I had a dinner with Tom DeSanto down here in Austin right before this franchise was announced and he and Murphy definitely have the best interests in mind. And with Bay - maybe he'll get Stan Winston to build full-size robotic Transformers!!! Which one day will be sold on EBAY - and then you can try... try to out bid me on them! But you will fail, yes... yes, Optimus will be mine! Puny mortals!

Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...

I want to update the story. As I understand it, things are not confirmed. The original story I ran was partially correct. I want to emphasize, though... I think Michael Bay is a great choice. And I'm not Harry. I've been hard on Bay for some of his films in the past. Even so, I think there are about six guys in the business who can shoot a film this size, and even if you don't like Bay's story sense, he can shoot the shit out of a film like this. Fans overreacting against the choice strike me the same way they did when they chased him off SUPERMAN... they're missing the point. Who better to shoot hardcore Americana iconography than Bay? Look at ARMAGEDDON, for god's sakes. He would have been perfect for SUPERMAN.

And I think he'll be ideal for TRANSFORMERS. He'll make the robots sexy. And the script is in good hands. Since the very beginning of this, both DeSanto and Murphy have been very vocal about what fans can expect in terms of characters and general storylines, and it sounds like they're going to deal with the classic line-up that fans prefer. I'm not a TRANSFORMERS fan myself... I think I just missed them during the '80s for whatever reason... but I can respect the size of the fanbase. It's huge and it's hungry. They want a TRANSFORMERS movie. There is a whole generation of guys who cried when Optimus Prime died who will see this thing over and over and over, and kids will just plain like the robots. So, fingers crossed that things do come together the right way. Dreamworks isn't planning to lowball this thing, and the potential hiring of Bay should give fans hope that they're going to get the biggest, craziest TRANSFORMERS film they could hope for. Now, here's the original story, in which I was wrong entirely about Emmerich:

A little birdie at Dreamworks gave me a call today and just sang and sang and sang. Now, at first, I decided to be skeptical of anything the birdie said because of the date. April 1st, I just let the phone ring most times. But this is someone I’ve known for a while, someone who most assuredly works where they say they work, someone who has been listening in on some recent meetings in which it appears Dreamworks has narrowed the list of potential directors for TRANSFORMERS down to two names, both familiar to fanboys worldwide.

Roland Emmerich is evidently eager to do the film, but I hear he’s about to get shut out in favor of Michael Bay. If I was a betting man, I’d put my money on Bay. Word is that Dreamworks is mighty happy with THE ISLAND, and they want to reward Bay by handing over a franchise they see as a major priority at the studio. Tom DeSanto and Don Murphy are both attached to produce the film, and they’re currently supervising a rewrite of the John Rogers script by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who wrote THE ISLAND and who are best known for their work on ALIAS.

So go ahead... be skeptical. I would expect nothing less on this calendar date. But when they finish up with all the paperwork and the smoke clears, I’m sure it’ll be one of these two guys, and I’m leaning towards Bay as the winner. Let’s see what happens next week.