The Morning Call have revealed that Bethlehem’s filming shall be at a steel works, a highly mechanized and perfectly suited backdrop:

Try to imagine giant, extraterrestrial robots disguised as tractor-trailers on Route 22 or camouflaged among the towering Bethlehem Steel blast furnaces.

A film crew from ”Transformers 2” will bring those shape-shifting robots to life in south Bethlehem next month for a movie scene in front of the iconic furnaces.

Of course, no one will see the robots because they’re computer-generated. But anyone will be able to see the action at the old Steel site as the filmmakers transform it into a fictional Chinese city populated by people from the Lehigh Valley.

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The movie crew will film in Bethlehem during the first week of June and will use the blast furnaces as the scene’s backdrop, Callahan said.

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According to an announcement from Heery Casting of Philadelphia, the filmmakers hope to cast local ”Asian men and women, boys and girls, ages 7 [to] 65” as paid extras in the movie. In particular, the crew hopes to recruit extras of Asian descent who have military backgrounds.

Thanks locoexw!

Via Variety and Jordan’s first pavillion at the Cannes film festival, we have found out that Michael Bay plans to take TF2 to Jordan:

Jordan [...] is joining the Mideast film gold rush with a number of projects and initiatives designed to bolster the country’s film biz.

Paramount-DreamWorks has inked with the Jordanian Royal Film Commission to film “Transformers 2” in the country and Fox has scouted locations in the country for its bigscreen “The A-Team.” It is believed to be in discussions for the action pic to lense there.

/Film have been tipped off about a possible film shoot at the University of Pennsylvania (Sam Witwicky will be in college):

I’m a student at the University of Pennsylvania and a few of my friends involved in student government told me that Transformers 2 will be shooting on campus in one of the nicer fraternities this summer. Im guessing these scenes will involve Shia/Jonah at college. Michael Bay was also seen on campus a few weeks back, so I guess that sort of confirms that the film will be partially shot here. Thought you might like to know.

The Greater Philadelphia Film Office have recently confirmed, via KYW radio, that Transformers II will be shooting their in the near future,

That’s just a possibility still. “Dream of the Romans” has been shooting. ‘Tenure”, “Happy Tears”, and “Marly and Me” are upcoming as is Transformers II. But won’t giant robots wreck the place????

“Ha, ha. Let’s just say the destruction part is going to be digitally enhanced.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer have hinted, giving weight to some earlier rumors, that the Transformers sequel will be filming in the Bethlehem PA area:

Neat twist surrounding the action movie Transformers 2, whose production will be based in Philly for the better part of June. I hear that director Michael Bay and crew also will shoot in Bethlehem, Pa., which will double as a city in the Far East. (A twist in the notion of sending American jobs overseas.)