Steven Spielberg has been trying to make a movie called Lincoln for quite some time now, but to no avail. He even had Liam Neeson attached to star as Abe, but all of those complicated little components to a film’s production became a little too big and the project has been stalled out since then. In what you would think might make things even worse for Spielberg, Robert Redford has announced that he’s now making his own Lincoln movie called The Conspirator, which will begin filming soon, and stars James McAvoy and Robin Wright Penn. Of course, you’d be wrong.

No, it’s actually quite the contrary — Mr. Spielberg is thrilled with this news and welcomes Redford’s movie with open arms. The reason? There are a couple. Most important of all is obvious: the eyes. Spielberg hopes that people seeing this new movie will open more doors for his movie to get the backing that it needs. He also believes that there is plenty of stories to be told about the legendary president, and that his is completely different from theirs.

What happens when the most powerful man on the planet in President of the United States, Barack Obama, meets the most “explosive” director in cinematic history, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen director Michael Bay? Does the universe implode? Does God shoot off some fireworks synchronized to an Aerosmith soundtrack to set the mood? Maybe we just get an innocent and amusing little story and quote.

While at a press conference recently, Bay was asked about why he chose to use President Obama’s name in his Transformers sequel instead of a fictional Presidential figure. Bay went on to tell the story of his meeting Obama in an airport in Vegas right after the start of his Presidential campaign. The entertaining part of the story comes when Obama found out Bay was a director and which movies he had made, he humorously corrected him by saying “So you’re a big-ass director,” to which Bay surely takes pride in.

Obviously this is more just a fun little tid-bit and not that important. But while the story is entertaining, the original question is a bit odd. Anyone who has seen the original Transformers knows that the President in that movie is pretty obvious, so it shouldn’t be all that shocking for Bay to name Barack Obama as the President in the sequel. Maybe the questioner was aware of the story and wanted Michael Bay to tell it, who knows.

Click over to see the brief video of the question and answer.