Feb 13 2008 Michael Bay Has Written 'Transformers 2', and Everything Else, It Turns Out
Michael Bay is not to be messed with. He's staged armageddons, forced people to walk in slow motion, spun cameras around things, blown stuff up, and all with the hair of an aging rocker. Michael Bay is not going to let some whining writers interrupt his schedule. That's why, when whoever has the torturous task of writing a two-hour toy commercial/nostalgia generator sat back down at the keyboard today, they were greeted with a little surprise: A Michael Screenbay.
Yes, as my sad amalgamation of "screenplay" and "Bay" nearly implies, Michael Bay has cranked out his own rough draft of Transformers 2, complete with such novel concepts as characters and story--new to Bay's repertoire. But what's really interesting is that it turns out he's been doing this all along:
I've been writing Transformers 2. We've got our characters all designed. I always write all my scripts, my movies anyway so at least I've got something to give the writers. It's like a template. We have a really good outline so I worked on that.
So you mean to tell me that after watching Armageddon, utterly infuriated as to how anyone could combine so many absurd plot points, ridiculous dialogue, and explosions into one film, cursing the names of Robert Roy Pool (story), Jonathan Hensleigh (story, screenplay), Tony Gilroy (adaptation), Shane Salerno (adaptation), and J.J. Abrams (screenplay, and yes, that J.J. Abrams), I should have also been cursing the name Michael Bay? All along, he's been contributing more than just the aesthetic of a car commercial? I mean, it makes sense with the consist level of idiocy he's maintained, but he could have said something earlier.
Michael Bay Says He Already Wrote Transformers 2 [Rotten Tomatoes]
Feb 13 2008 Writer's Guild Strike Officially Over
With networks straining to come up with absolutely anything that doesn't require writing, an agreement was finally reached with the Writer's Guild yesterday, officially ending the 100-day strike. So, writers of Two and a Half Men, get back to making me laugh my ass off.
Official release under the cut.
Nov 7 2007 'The Office' Writers Strike, Picket, Joke
If there's a positive to this whole Writers Guild strike, it's that it's easy to pick sides. Do you support the faceless corporate entities trying to rob poor writers of their "new media" residuals? Or do you support the witty and charming writers of The Office, who seem to have very reasonable demands, and make funny YouTube videos to promote their agenda? As a side note, supporting the corporations makes you a soulless bastard.
The Office writers speak out, under the cut.
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Nov 5 2007 Tina Fey Talks Writer's Guild Strike
With the Writer's Guild going on strike today, who better to turn to than 30 Rock writer/actor Tina Fey to find out what's going on and how it will affect us? Thank god that Martin Mull-looking idiot from The Insider had the same thought, and interviewed her picketing outside Rockefeller Center.
In short, it means shows written on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis, like SNL, The Daily Show, and late-night talk shows are effectively in re-runs starting today, while pre-filmed showed probably have a few months left of new material.
Thankfully, reality shows, probably Oprah (no one writes her crying or giving gifts to the audience, right?), and CSI (which is written by chimps) will continue churning out television.
See the interview under the cut. I particularly like the part where she panders to those who would only respond to Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy references.
Nov 2 2007 WGA Strike - One Writer's Perspective
As many of you already know, a Writers Guild strike is looming, and could very well begin on Monday unless a deal is reached over the weekend. You can find out more of the details here, but for a unique perspective on the situation, I've turned to veteran Price is Right writer and guild member Herman Bosse for the inside scoop:
Many of you may be surprised that there are writers on PiR. To you I say, pull your head out. You think Bob Barker came up with Plinko? Please. That guy was so busy chasing skirt, we could barely keep him on the stage. That excessively-long microphone was just a tether to keep him from running at some busty college broad in the audience.Is this strike going to effect PiR? You'd better believe it is.
For one thing, say goodbye to any new and exciting pricing games. I hope you don't mind seeing Check Game, Lucky $even, and the rest of the 75 current games every day for the next six months, because that's all you're getting.
It's a shame, too, because I had this idea for a new one, where you guess the price of various smaller items to win a larger, more valuable item, that was gonna make Cliffhangers look like a piece of shit hanging off Drew Carey's fat ass.
Did you happen to see last week, when the typically mundane Showcase Showdown was gloriously enlivened by the surprise arrival of E.L.T.--the Extra Large Terrestrial? That was me. Needless to say, the audience was so in-stitches over this hilarious parody of the Steven Spielberg classic that they could barely shout their bid suggestions. Well, unless we can work something out by Monday, you can kiss that shit goodbye.
And good luck bringing some hotshot young assholes in here to make pricing games. As if these kids today know the value of a dollar. Hey, that's a pretty good name for a game: Value of a Dollar. I'd better get to work on that, just in case I have to go to work on Monday.
I think that was helpful. Right?
Oct 11 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened...
- Dreamworks is at work on a sequel to the sleeper hit Disturbia. Disturbier seems like the obvious name, to me. [Bloody Disgusting]
- ComingSoon has the latest list of movies being prioritized for pre-strike production. Paramont wins with the inclusion of UNTITLED WAYANS BROTHERS. Rest assured that whatever the Wayans write, it will be produced as quickly as their sure-to-be-hysterical make-up can be applied. [ComingSoon]
- The director of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre will helm From a Buick 8, Stephen King's other killer car story, besides Christine. Yes, why wouldn't there be two killer car stories in Stephen King's catalog? [Variety]
Oct 9 2007 Some Other Crap That Happened...
- A biopic on Sugar Ray Leonard, a man who has been world champion in five different weight classes, will be made by Kevin Pollack, a man who has five celebrity impressions, three of which are William Shatner. How appropriate. [Variety]
- Lisa Kudrow joins Emma Roberts and Don Cheadle in the wacky dogs-in-a-hotel movie Hotel for Dogs. (Again, why is Cuba Gooding, Jr. not in this?) Ten-to-one odds say her character will be vacuous but strangely endearing. [Hollywood Reporter]
- Pixar plans to release a trilogy of John Carter of Mars films, the first of which should reach audiences before 2012. I've never read the Edgar Rice Burroughs novels, but image searching leads me to believe it's a plainly-named Conan the Barbarian killing some space freaks, something I never realized I wanted to see until now. [Empire]
- Will a Writer's Guild strike happen as soon as November 1? Possibly! What will this mean in regards to the Tarantino-esque-with-a-hint-of-early-Kevin-Smith script you've been working on since college? Don't worry, it's still really awesome. [Variety]
