Bay criticises Transformers sequel marketing 'failure'
Bay criticises Transformers sequel marketing 'failure'
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Monday, 22, Jun 2009 01:45
Director Michael Bay has reportedly lambasted the promotional campaign for the release of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
The film is expected to top the UK box office this week before its US release on June 24th but a leaked memo sent to Paramount Pictures sees the director attacking the US print marketing of the film as an "abject failure".
A copy of the email, allegedly sent from Bay to Paramount chief Brad Grey as well as other studio executives on May 4th, has been obtained by gossip website TMZ.com, which has published a copy of the Armageddon director's criticism.
"You talk so glowingly about Transformers being the movie of the summer, but unfortunately this has not got to the public," he wrote.
"I have been waiting and waiting for the anticipation of an 'event movie' to make it into the 'public zeitgeist'.
"Right now, we are not an event, we are just a sequel, which is very different. There is no anticipation. Remember back to Spider-Man 2 - it was everywhere."
Click here to read the inthenews.co.uk review of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
The Bad Boys helmer described preview pieces in publications such as Entertainment Weekly as "really weak" while he attacked the "pathetic presence" of the sequel in the Los Angeles Times newspaper.
Bay also complained that while the first Transformers movie was given a 30-minute slot at the MTV Movie awards, the second instalment merely featured stars Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf introducing a clip, an approach he labelled "so lame".
The email also sees Bay explaining his filmmaker friends Jerry Bruckheimer and Steven Spielberg would be disappointed at the studio's promotion of Revenge of the Fallen.
He explained producer Bruckheimer had repeatedly told him that if "a studio that does not make [the opening of a movie] an event... [it] will get bitten in the ass," and added: "Besides my good friend Steven [Spielberg], Jerry has made a lot more successful movies then [sic] all of us."
In a second email sent to the studio on June 6th also leaked to TMZ, Bay compared Paramount to a family and thanked executives for "busting your butts and bringing your 'A Game' for the release of Transformers".
A spokeswoman for declined to comment other than to point out that the latter email "clearly speaks to a differing stance than the former".