Bay Writing Transformers 2

With an agreement reached for the Director's Guild of America, at least one impediment to Transformers 2 making its June 24, 2009 debut date is gone. All that's left is the end of the WGA strike and AMPTP working something out with SAG. Until then, apparently Bay has decided to take pen to paper himself and pen the script for the movie.

From Variety:

Director Michael Bay said he was cautiously optimistic, but that he has been preparing to get a "Transformers" sequel into production, strike or no strike.

"We knew from early on that the writers strike could get ugly, and this has got to bring a little sanity to the situation," Bay said. "I can't do the movie without my writers, but I have been prepping. I'm not in the guild, but I've been writing every day. This strike (is) insane, and a director's responsibility is to the 50 crew members who depend on you for their livelihoods. We've got battle plans ready for the possibility of an actors strike. Somehow, you've got to keep the ball rolling."

The movie, because its CGI and action heavy, doesn't have the same reliance on dialogue and actors as most movies. The time from script to screen is long, not because of the filming itself but because of the longer pre-production and post-production that it requires. For example, Transformers took about two years from greenlight to screen, only 3 months of those 24 was actually shooting work. Because of this time and expense, the large action sequences and CGI is usually set in stone early in the film process so work can begin.

With careful planning, Bay could pretty much film the entire movie, sans words and actors. Since he is writing the movie (so far) he can even do the Transformers dialogue, use stand-in actors, and pretty much come up with a near final version of the movie. Once WGA or SAG work out agreements, the dialogue can be replaced, re-shoots done and the stand-ins either practically replaced or done with computers. I almost want the actors to strike just to see if its possible because it could revolutionize how filming is done.