Another round-up of the weekend’s Transformers 2 news stories.

UK Box Office

Transformers 2 has, as of July 19th, been released to the UK public. The NY Times report that the sequel has taken 50% more in its opening weekend than it’s 2007 predecessor.

You can’t tell much from the box office performance of a film on a single night, in a single foreign territory. But Paramount executives were congratulating themselves on Saturday over the Friday night results of ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ in the United Kingdom. Word had it that the movie had done roughly 50 percent better than its predecessor, which two years ago went on to take in $389 million in foreign markets, and $319 at the domestic box office.

With the hot start in England, company executives were privately speculating that the new ;ldquo;Transformers;rdquo; film had a shot at becoming Paramount;rsquo;s second-highest grossing film, behind ;ldquo;Titanic,;rdquo; which took in a monstrous $1.8 billion worldwide under a split deal with Fox.

That would be a nice start for Adam Goodman, who was named president of the movie group on Friday, as two fellow executives, John Lesher and Brad Weston, were ushered out. Both were offered producer deals. The betting here is that Mr. Weston will accept, while Mr. Lesher strikes for greener pastures.

Shia on The Tonight Show, June 19th

As part of the TV press tour Shia appeared on The Tonight Show last Friday with Conan O’Brien. Courtesy of Shia Videos

Ramon Rodriguez on Jimmy Kimmel

Ramon (Leo Spitz) talks stunts and Revenge of the Fallen on last Thursday’s edition of the show:

Cast Q&A

Coming Soon have posted a transcript of the Revenge of the Fallen Question and Answer session. The responses are all very jovial and do not give too much away about the movie. If you’re not one for reading, try out this handy video playlist from the same session:

Q: Are you already thinking about the third film?

Bay: I don’t know. We’ll see how this one turns out.

Q: How many minutes of deleted scenes might be on the DVD?

Bay: I don’t know. We’re figuring it out right now. Seven or eight?

Q: Are you going to be shooting more in IMAX?

Bay: I regret not shooting the head scene in IMAX. But IMAX is very expensive. Just special effects in IMAX is expensive.

Q: Do you think you’ll be doing IMAX for all your future movies?

Bay: I don’t know. If the movie serves it.

Q: What else can we expect from the DVD?

Bay: This one is done by Ridley Scott’s DVD guy. We’re gonna have a lot of stuff on this. We’re gonna have a special IMAX version where it’ll open up the top and bottom.

TV talk show schedule

Thanks to TLAMB,

The schedule, subject to change:
Th 6/18: Ramon Rodriguez – Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC)
Fr 6/19: Shia LaBeouf – The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien (NBC)
Tu 6/23: Isabel Lucas – Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC)
Tu 6/23: Tyrese Gibson – Chelsea Lately (E!)
We 6/24: Josh Duhamel – Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC)
Th 6/25: Megan Fox – David Letterman (CBS)
Th 6/25: Shia LaBeouf – Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC)
Th 6/25: Shia Labeouf – Live with Regis and Kelly (syndicated)
Fr 6/26: Megan Fox – Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC)
Fr 6/26: Megan Fox – Live with Regis and Kelly (syndicated)
Mo 6/29: Josh Duhamel – Live with Regis and Kelly (syndicated)

Crew screenings

Michael Bay answers questions about when the cast and crew can watch the final feature:

Press is asking about crew screeings

They seem to want to know about my crew screenings. Not sure why the press is interested? We had 2500 crew members from many parts of the US and some in the Middle East and London. We have an IMAX crew screening Sunday night. We have an ILM screening Monday night and Paramount invited some of my key crew members to the LA premiere I think Tuesday we are putting together a crew screening which is being planned at Paramount. Thursday we have an IMAX screening in Washington for the Pentagon people involved in the film. And we have one set up in Jordan. BTW the press is not invited.

Michael Bay in the NYTimes

Bay discusses the Transformers franchise and why he decided to take it on in his latest NYTimes interview:

And you created other characters that weren’t established in the toys, the comics or the animation?
We wanted to get into the deeper lore of it. At one point, I’d already been shooting the movie, and we were doing this scene in space. And I asked these Hasbro experts on Transformers, I said, “So, how are Transformers born?” And they kind of – dead pause. “I don’t know.” “What do you mean, you don’t know? Isn’t that one of the first things you figure out?” [laughs] So I created how they’re born.

How are they born?
They’re in a special sac. They’re called hatchlings. It’s quite nice.

Read full interview

Shia and Megan on La Grand Journal

Whilst in Paris Megan and Shia appeared on this French show, quite an entertaining video, but not completely Transformers related. Thanks again to Shia LaBeouf Video.