Dark Secrets Behind The Making Of 'Transformers'

According to Megan Fox, Michael Bay was absolutely horrible to work with. She compared him to a dictator, going as far as to say he, “wants to be like Hitler on his sets.” Fox had enough of Bay before the filming of Transformers: Dark of the Moon began, and claimed he was a complete tyrant who degraded her image for his own benefit.

During the filming of the Transformers series, Bay constantly exploited her for audience eye-candy. He even demanded she present herself sexually. If she wasn't fulfilling these requirements, he would become aggressive and cruel. Shia LaBeouf commented on the situation, stating Bay didn't have the tact or time to express commands gently like, "arch your back 70 degrees."

Working for Michael Bay is bound to come with a fair amount of risk. While he worked on set with Bay, Shia LaBeouf sustained multiple injuries, and was lucky to avoid several others.

Over the course of filming Transformers, LaBeouf described the work as "the most physical thing" he's ever had to do. He was battered, chased, and straight-up impaled. During his first day on set, police guard dogs pounced at him, and chased him until trainers had to tackle one of the 200 pound animals before it ripped LaBeouf to shreds. In another incident, the actor was impaled straight through the eye by a rod, directly above his retina, and he almost lost his vision.

When Michael Bay fired Megan Fox, the third installation of the Transformers franchise, Transformers: Dark of the Moon was ready to start production. She was quickly replaced by a model Bay had previously worked with on a Victoria's Secret commercial. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley was familiar with working with sexually explicit directors. However, Bay found his own way to exploit her when he ditched her in the middle of the 100 degree California desert wearing only lingerie and heels. 

When he first met the model, the first thing he asked her was "Can you walk?" Following this, he drove her into the middle of the desert. He then said "OK, when we shout action, you're going to walk!" He then sped away and left her to walk back to set. Said the model later of the experience: "I want to say it was about half a mile out in the desert. I kept thinking, 'This is a joke, right?'... [It] felt like fire. I remember walking back and being not impressed by the whole thing. I was pretty pissed off afterwards.

Michael Bay needlessly sexualized Megan Fox during her time spent playing Mikaela Banes in Transformers. Her audition actually consisted of going over to his house and washing his Ferrari. As she scrubbed away at the foreign car, he also filmed her, assessing the way she looked while bending over it.

If her audition tape doesn't already seem monstrously creepy, Fox claimed she doesn't have any idea what happened to the reel. When Bay was asked about the tape, he responded with, "Er, I don't know where it is either."

If you couldn't already tell by the hordes of cars that clutter the screen of every Transformers flick, the films are basically just a giant car commercial. Michael Bay is no stranger to shooting for major car companies like GM, so he was the perfect selection for Hollywood's largest, car-based franchise.

Michael Bay completely redesigned the cars in Transformers to take the shape of American automobiles. Initially he gave foreign cars the boot, as he struck up deals with home-terf distributors (like making Bumblebee a Chevy Camaro instead of a classic VW Beetle). Chevrolet’s corporate elites absolutely loved this. They've talked ad nauseam about how sales have been boosted since the making of Transformers, praising Bay for exposing a young audience to their brand in a fresh way.

To set the mood for certain scenes, Shia LaBeouf liked to blast music that helped get him in the zone. To get his creative juices flowing for the end scene of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, LaBeouf turned on the song "Brandy Alexander" by Feist and let the music fill the entire set. This sent Michael Bay, who is more interested in cinematic scores, into a frenzy. 

After snatching LaBeouf's iPad out of the speaker system, Bay put on his own music, which happened to be Hans Zimmer's score from The Dark Knight. The two argued over it out for a while causing such a ruckus the director left the set completely, he didn't even bother to stay to direct the scene.