The lack of any legitimate Transformers 2 announcements out of Paramount has been odd to down right eerie. Generally speaking, when a franchise film that has every intention of being a franchise hits it out of the park as significantly as Transformers did (Nearly $700 million worldwide and still counting), a studio will be VERY quick to capitalize on the early buzz and put out some news of plans for the follow-up film. Thus far… all has been silent on the Transformers front. Until today.
The good folks over at ComingSoon have let us know that Paramount has “officially” set a release date for Transformers 2. The date is June 29 (correction – 26th), 2009. So considering how much of a fan I was of the first film (just saw it on IMAX this weekend and ran into Michael Bay while there), why am I not breaking out the streamer and confetti at this news? Well… that’s simple… because it’s meaningless news.
The reason I call it meaningless news is that it doesn’t mean anything. They’ll change that release date for sure… unless they can FINISH FILMING by June 2008… because that’s when the strike will start. So it’s all well and good for them to come out and announce a release date for the movie… but unless they plan to get their collective asses in gear and start making the movie SOON… that date is totally meaningless.
The REAL announcement we need to hear from Paramount here is NOT a release date… but rather a date for when they plan to start shooting. Last I heard, Michael Bay wasn’t even sure what was going on… that means serious pre-production hasn’t even started yet… which means they’re still FAR from being ready to get everyone together and start filming (a LOT of work has to be done before the cameras start rolling).
IF they can start shooting this thing by January, then getting everything done that needs to be done before the strike (provided they don’t settled the issues before that happens), then yes… a Jun 29th 2009 release date is more than possible. But right now, we still have no idea (and it looks like even Bay has no idea) when they’re going to get the ball rolling.
So yeah, a release date announcement is all well and good… what we need is a shooting date announcement for it to be worth getting excited about.
