Yahoo USA Top Latest News - Director Michael Bay's fourth film in the "Transformers" franchise is expected to win the weekend box-office crown handily, as all other big-studio films are avoiding opening against it. Here are five cool things to know about "Transformers: Age of Extinction" before you head to theaters: A billion dollar franchise. Since the first "Transformers" film hit theaters in 2007, critics -- including yours truly -- have taken their shots at the Michael Bay-directed series for their convoluted plots, bloated running times and preference for eye candy over anything resembling character development. The first three films in the series have grossed a total of $2.7 billion, making the "Transformers" series the twelfth highest-grossing film franchise in Hollywood history -- and counting. If "Age of Extinction" performs as well as its predecessors, it could come within striking distance of cracking the top 10. Transformers: Age of Extinction star Mark Wahlberg said one reason he decided to take a role in the film was because his kids thought it was cool. Introducing Nicola Peltz. Wahlberg's might be the biggest name in the "Age of Extinction" cast, but 19-year-old Nicola Peltz could be the film's breakout star.
The "Last Airbender" and "Bates Motel" actress plays Wahlberg's daughter in the film, and he says she's the real deal. "Transformers: Age of Extinction" -- the fourth film in the torn-from-the-toybox film franchise -- isn't technically a reboot, but you can be forgiven if you think it is. Fan-favorite Autobots Optimus Prime and Bumblebee are back, of course, but they're surrounded by a whole new cast of characters. That starts with the human cast, which includes Wahlberg, Peltz, Jack Reynor and TJ Miller. Speaking recently to the website IGN, "Transformers" producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura stressed that "Age of Extinction" should not be considered the first in a new trilogy for the franchise. It's really a one-movie-at-a-time philosophy. Both (director Michael Bay) and I feel like it's a little arrogant of us to presume success each time. Transformers: Age of Extinction is the first feature film to shoot with a brand new, digital IMAX 3D camera. It’s also one of two films being released in full IMAX this year. So for director Michael Bay to urge fans to see the film in IMAX 3D is kind of a no-brainer. Here’s Bay’s Transformers 4 IMAX 3D statement from his official site:
We conceived and shot this movie with 3D cameras. We also are the first movie in the world to shoot with the new IMAX digital 3D camera. The AGE OF EXTINCTION was formatted for 2.40 for normal theaters. What makes the IMAX version of this film so different is that 60 percent of the movie opens up and fills the whole IMAX screen. It makes Transformers 4 such an immersive experience.
The second best way to watch ‘Age of Extinction’ is in a 3D theater featuring Dolby ATMOS sound. ATMOS is the next level in the surround sound experience. See you at the movies.
Michael
Many IMAX theaters in and around the world don’t have the screen size to truly display what Bay had in mind. You don’t need Michael Bay to tell you that.
Also of note – Transformers: Age of Extinction is 165 minutes. Plan your bathroom breaks accordingly.
Michael Bay continues to orchestrate symphonies of destruction and bombast, this time unleashing his robots on Hong Kong and parts of mainland China.
Paramount is eyeing especially sky-high returns in China, where “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” is the fourth highest-grossing film of all time with nearly $180 million, and where “Age of Extinction” received mainland production assistance from 1905 (Beijing) Network Technology Co., China Movie Channel and Jiaflix Enterprises. Still, it’s Hong Kong that gets the lion’s share of the attention onscreen, taking up about 30 minutes of the film’s 165-minute running time (a franchise record).
Attinger dispatches his henchmen, forcing Yeager, Tessa and Optimus Prime to go on the run.
That happens when, in classic Western fashion, Optimus Prime summons the surviving Autobots — Bumblebee, Ratchet (Robert Foxworth), Hound (John Goodman), Drift (Ken Watanabe), Crosshairs (John DiMaggio), and later, Brains (Reno Wilson) — to form his own Magnificent Seven.
Bay really lets rip when the Autobots, with the help of their human allies, break into KSI Headquarters in Chicago, ground zero in the previous installment. It’s an exhilarating sequence in which two man-made Transformers, Stinger and Galvatron (Frank Welker), slug it out with the good bots. In several scenes, the dull, rusty hues of the man-made Transformers blend especially well with the grimy tenements, which resemble stacks of matchboxes. As the sine qua non of the franchise, it’s the robots — endowed here with character-rich physicality and almost human-scaled facial features — who give the film its emotional heft. Optimus Prime’s charismatic leadership of his team, as well as his unwavering compassion for the humans, again makes him the movie’s moral anchor. Industrial Light & Magic again provides an orgy of visual effects and animation, delivering lightning-fast, acrobatic movements from the colossal Dinobots, and conjuring the man-made Transformers from graceful cubic formations.
