At first I wasn’t really interested in this story because the early reports made it seem like it was just another man who broke onto the set of Transformers: Age Of Extinction and threw a punch at Michael Bay. There were also reports of an extortion scheme floating around. But soon the story developed into something stranger and started to resemble something you would see in an arcade beat-em up. It turns out that someone did break onto the set of the film while it was in production, got passed security, attacked a couple of crew members, and eventually got to Bay. His weapon of choice: an air conditioner.
Hit the jump to read statements from Paramount and Bay.
Here is the statement Paramount released to the New York Times:
“Contrary to several erroneous news reports, Bay did not get hurt in a fight on his set. The production company did have a rather bizarre encounter with a man (allegedly under the influence of a narcotic substance) who was wielding an air conditioning unit as his weapon of choice.
The young man, who had earlier accosted several other crew members, barreled onto the set in Quarry Bay and swung the cumbersome appliance directly at Bay’s head. The director ducked and wrested the air conditioner from his attacker, preventing what could have been a serious accident. The company’s security team quickly stepped in and subdued the assault. The police, who also scuffled with the assailant and two of his companions, ultimately arrested the three men. No one on the cast or crew was injured and the production immediately resumed filming without further incident.”
That is a surprising lack of security considering he got as close to the director as he did, especially with him welding an air conditioner. What I like about it though is that it makes it look like Bay has a few evasive maneuvers – or maybe he actually does, but until I see some actual footage I’ll believe it.
Here is what Bay told his forum members about the incident:
“Yes, some drugged up guys were being belligerent asses to my crew for hours in the morning of our first shoot day in Hong Kong. One guy rolled metal carts into some of my actors trying to shake us down for thousands of dollars to not play his loud music or hit us with bricks.
Every vendor where we shot got paid a fair price for our inconvenience, but he wanted four times that amount. I personally told this man and his friends to forget it we were not going to let him extort us. He didn’t like that answer. So an hour later he came by my crew as we were shooting, carrying a long air conditioner unit. He walked right up to me and tried to smack my face, but I ducked threw the air unit on the floor and pushed him away. That’s when the security jumped on him. But it took seven big guys to subdue him. It was like a Zombie in Brad Pitt’s movie World War Z””he lifted seven guys up and tried to bite them. He actually bit into one of the guards Nike shoe, insane. Thank god it was an Air Max, the bubble popped, but the toe was saved.
Then it took fifteen Hong Kong cops in riot gear to deal with these punks. In all, four guys were arrested for assaulting the officers. After that, we had a great day shooting here in Hong Kong.”
Well it confirms that there was some sort of extortion plot being schemed. He also mentions that he did “duck” the air conditioning attack and that he did “push” him away. Which makes me want to see footage of this even more, if there is even footage of it out there.
Transformers: Age Of Extinction opens in theaters on June 27th.
[Source: NYT | Shoot For The Edit]
No Comments »
No comments yet.
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Leave a comment