Bay announced that filming had begun on May 28, 2013, in Monument Valley, Utah. Detroit, was used as a stand-in for Hong Kong[55] while McCormick Place in Chicago, was re-dressed to portray a city in China.[56] The movie was the first feature film to be shot using smaller digital IMAX 3D cameras.[50] It also was shot in various other formats, including IMAX 70mm film cameras, digital stereo 3-D, and anamorphic and spherical 35mm film.[57] From May 28 to June 24, 2013, Michael Bay uploaded photographs of several cars featured in the film, all apparently Autobots, to social networks including Facebook and Flickr. The film featured two unknown Autobots that transformed into a black and blue 2013 Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse (going by production name "Drift"), and a green 2014 C7 Corvette Stingray concept (going by production name "Slingshot"). Also revealed was a truck from Western Star Trucks as Optimus Prime's new alternate mode. The Dinobots and Lockdown were confirmed to appear. On October 29, Michael Bay's Official Twitter Account tweeted that principal photography of Transformers 4 had been completed in Hong Kong, and the cast and crew were heading to the Chinese mainland.[58] (According to previous reports, crews would be filming there for one week.)[59] Additional filming in Detroit began in early 2014; a pair of steamships (Columbia and Ste. Claire) which had once traveled between Detroit and Bois Blanc Island's amusement park were partially restored and used as props for the film.[60] General Motors allowed film crews access to two of their facilities to be used during filming. Several scenes were filmed at the General Motors Technical Center with scenes being filmed at the Design Center and the Wind Tunnel Facility at the complex. Film crews also were given access to the Milford Proving Grounds where highway chase scenes were filmed.[61]
[Movie] Transformers Age of Extinction
Industrial Light & Magic's VFX supervisor Scott Farrar, who had also supervised the three prior films in the Transformers franchise, rendered the visual effects. He said the film contains about ninety minutes of visual effects (out of the movie's 165-minute length).[64] Farrer said it was the biggest project, using the largest crew, of his career, and noted that over five hundred people had worked on it, using various facilities.[65]
Steve Jablonsky composed the film's score, marking his sixth film collaboration with director Michael Bay, four of which are Transformers films. The soundtrack album sold more than 15,000 units worldwide. It is also the first Transformers film for which rock band Linkin Park did not contribute an original song, though their single "Until It's Gone" is included in the soundtrack of the video game based on the movie.[66]
International openings of over $5 million occurred in South Korea ($21.7 million), Brazil ($16.5 million), Germany ($11.2 million), Australia ($9.6 million), France ($8.8 million), Taiwan ($8.1 million), Malaysia ($6.7 million), Japan ($6.4 million), the Philippines ($5.7 million), India ($5.35 million), Hong Kong ($5.1 million), and Italy ($5 million).[117] In Russia, the film opened to number one with $21.7 million from 1,100 screens, which is the second-largest in the territory for which 3D accounted for 80% of the total gross. IMAX comprised $2.6 million of the total gross from 34 IMAX screens.[117] Its biggest opener outside the U.S. was in China, where it scored one of the biggest non-North American openings of all time with $91.2 million from 4,400 screens, which was once the second-biggest opening of all time there.[117][120] The film set an all-time IMAX opening record with $9.7 million.[117][121] After five days of its release, Age of Extinction surpassed its North American run with $134.5 million.[122][123] In China, the film earned an additional $50.9 million in its second weekend for a total of $212.8 million. In only 10 days of its release, it became the highest-grossing film in China with $222.74 million, thus overtaking Avatar's previous record.[124][125][126] Adding to the film's revenue and popularity were product placements of Chinese brands edited into the movie specifically for Chinese audiences.[127]
Richard Roeper gave the film a "D", saying that "the longer the movie goes on, the less interesting it becomes; it just wears you down. As we were finally reaching the 165-minute mark, all that noise and fury was about as exciting as the special effects in an Ed Wood movie."[144] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film zero out of four stars, calling it "the worst and most worthless Transformers movie yet."[145] Kyle Smith of the New York Post gave the film one-and-a-half out of four stars, commenting that "This series was never good, but it was once fun, or at least flashy. Now that its gears have gone rusty, it's time for an Alien vs. Predator-style rethink."[146] A. O. Scott of The New York Times said in his review that "The story is scaffolding for the action and like every other standing structure, it is wrecked in a thunderous shower of metal, glass, masonry, and earth."[147]
Following the Battle of Chicago, humanity has come to fear both Autobots and Decepticons alike. With the aid of a Transformer mercenary named Lockdown, a CIA task-force operated by Harold Attinger begins hunting the remaining Transformers on Earth. Hunted by enemies that were once his allies, Optimus Prime loses faith in humanity and sends his forces into hiding. Now, five years later, struggling inventor and single-father Cade Yeager discovers a damaged Transformer, placing both himself and his daughter on a collision course with events that threaten the extinction of humankind itself.
It won one Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director (Michael Bay), was one of four movies contributing to Kelsey Grammer's Worst Supporting Actor win (along with The Expendables 3, Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return and Think Like a Man Too), and was unsuccessfully nominated for Worst Picture; Worst Supporting Actress (Nicola Peltz as Tessa Yeager); Worst Screen Combo ("Any two robots, actors (or robotic actors)"); Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel; and Worst Screenplay ("screenplay by Ehren Kruger, based on Hasbro's Transformers action figures").
Eight months later, on February 13, 2012, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura gave an interview during Toy Fair 2012, in which he confirmed that a fourth film was scheduled for a release in the Summer of 2014, Michael Bay would direct it after all, and that the movie would be a "reboot". He promptly clarified that it was actually a "hybrid", an "evolution" of the franchise that would be in continuity with the previous films, citing 2012's The Amazing Spider-Man reboot of the Spider-Man film franchise as an example of what people should not expect from a fourth Transformers film. Di Bonaventura also confirmed that no casting discussions had taken place yet at that point, since there was no set story yet. However, there would be "a lot of new cast", and it was still uncertain at that point whether any of the previous cast members would return. The only characters that would "certainly" return would be Optimus Prime and Bumblebee.[8] A day later, on February 14, 2012, Bay himself and Paramount Pictures officially announced that Bay had indeed signed a deal to make a fourth Transformers film. The film's release date was stated alternatively as either June 27 or June 29, 2014.[9][10] That same day, Bay also confirmed that he and Spielberg were working on a "whole new re imagining[sic] of Transformers".[11] Two days later, on February 16, 2012, actor Josh Duhamel expressed his doubts that he, Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley or Tyrese Gibson would return for the fourth installment.[12]
On March 20, 2013, the Michigan Film Office announced that the fourth film would return to Detroit.[30] Principal photography began on May 28, 2013, at Monument Valley.[31] Other shooting locations were the small towns of Lockhart, Taylor, Elgin and Pflugerville in Texas.[32] Shooting in Michigan involved two historic passenger steamboats, the SS Columbia and her sister ship, the SS Ste. Claire, which were docked in River Rouge awaiting restoration at the time being used as props.[33] While shooting in Detroit, Mark Wahlberg's children visited the set and were given small parts in the movie upon their father's request.[34]
Due to an increased focus of Hollywood studios trying to market its movies to the Chinese audience, parts of the movie were not only set in China, but actually filmed there. One of the shooting sites was Hong Kong. While there, the movie crew encountered the risks of shooting a movie in China firsthand when director Michael Bay was assaulted on the set by two locals demanding money; according to some sources, they were store owners that were not satisfied with the compensation they received for the inconvenience of having a movie filming nearby. Bay received minor injuries, but played the incident off on his blog. Both he and an official Paramount statement suggested that the assailants were under the influence of drugs.[35][36][37][38] A second extortion attempt occurred several days later, this time allegedly by several triad gang members. Although one of them was later arrested, no-one was injured this time around.[39][40] Once again, Bay played down the extortion attempts in an interview, noting that most of the locals were apologetic over what took place, and that he wanted to film more projects in Hong Kong.[41]
Age of Extinction continues the collaboration with General Motors. Earlier in the film, Bumblebee chooses a customized 1967 Chevrolet Camaro SS as his disguise when hiding from Cemetery Wind, whereas later on, he upgrades to the newest model, a 2014 Camaro concept car. (The production crew was actually accused of ripping off a one-of-a-kind custom for the 1967 version.[44]) Furthermore, new addition Crosshairs's alternate mode is a 2014 Chevrolet C7 Corvette Stingray, and recurring character Ratchet briefly appears at the beginning of the movie and transforms into his Hummer H2 ambulance mode (in the color scheme from Dark of the Moon) before being killed at the hands of Cemetery Wind and Lockdown. 2ff7e9595c
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