Paramount wants Michael Bay to do Transformers 3D

It’s almost astounding to me that people are sitting around a giant conference room table somewhere agreeing that the big problem with TRANSFORMERS 2 was that it didn’t have enough stuff flying at the audience’s face. But then again, I don’t think for a second anyone is trying to make a better TRANSFORMERS movie, just a more profitable one, and for that 3D certainly makes sense.

In an article on the boon of 3D films, Variety is reporting that Michael Bay, Paramount and ILM are having ongoing discussions about shooting TRANSFORMERS 3 in 3D. If you’ll remember, I caught up with Bay at ShoWest last year and when the question was posed about 3D, he said it was a “gimmick” and a “fad” and swiftly answered NO when asked if a TRANSFORMERS movie would be in 3D. But while money talks, bullshit walks. And if AVATAR has proven nothing else, it’s shown that 3D can bring in a LOT of money.

According to the article, the issue at hand is the additional time required to shoot a film in 3D (especially one as VFX heavy as a TRANSFORMERS film). Were they just shooting TRANSFORMERS fresh, this might not pose a problem, but Paramount has already locked in a July 1, 2011 release date. So do you stick to that date and scrap the 3D (which I’m sure would be fine with Bay) or do you go for 3D and push the film back to 2012?

Do you care one way or another if TRANSFORMERS 3 is in 3D?