New Michael Bay "Transformers" in 2014

Grab your earplugs and bet the farm on bikini wax futures, Producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura has announced that Michael Bay will direct the next Transformers movie that is currently scheduled to hit theaters on June 29th, 2014. The first three Transformers movies have earned over $2.6 billion at the worldwide box office, making it far and away Paramount’s top franchise and insuring that it will survive in some form to assault theaters in coming years.

Di Bonaventura told MTV News, “I think we are really going to do a reboot,” before indicating that he and Bay had not decided exactly how much surgery they were prepared to perform on the highly successful franchise, “It’s a hybrid because there is still continuity going on, but there will be a lot of new cast members. Whether there’s anybody from the first cast, we don’t even know yet. But it’s going to be a whole new story.”

The producer was referring to the “human” actors, whose escalating salaries add considerably to a movie’s cost as a franchise continues, and fortunately not to film’s real stars, the robots---Di Bonaventura made sure to let fans know, “But the characters that would come along would be Optimus (Prime) and Bumblebee.”

Liebesman to Helm Live "TNMT" Feature

The Hollywood trades are all reporting that Jonathan Liebesman is in negotiations to direct Paramount’s live-action reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for Paramount and producer Michael Bay. At this point in his career, Liebesman, who directed the remake of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre as well as Battle: Los Angeles and the forthcoming Wrath of the Titans, which debuts on March 30th, is a legit, if somewhat of a second-tier, director.

Created in 1984 by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles began as a comic book parody and became a worldwide kids’ entertainment phenomenon spinning off TV cartoons, feature films, and more toys than there are bedbugs in Manhattan.

The studio has released few details about the script for the franchise reboot, which was written by Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec, the pair that penned the recent hit Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol for Tom Cruise.

Rosie Huntington-Whitly to Replace Megan Fox

One of the biggest casting dramas in Hollywood may be drawing to a close. Although Paramount has not confirmed it, Victoria’s Secret has released a video congratulating leggy underwear model Rosie Huntington-Whitely for landing the ingénue role in Michael Bay’s Transformers 3.

Just a few weeks ago Paramount declined to pick up Fox’s option for the third Transformers movie, touching off a wave of speculation concerning Fox’s replacement. While Huntington-Whitely may be short on acting experience, she is definitely long where it counts--in the “gam” department--where she sports one of the best sets seen in Tinseltown since the heyday of Juliet Prowse.

Hugo Weaving to Portray The Red Skull

Marvel Studios has announced that veteran character actor Hugo Weaving will play the key role of The Red Skull in The First Avenger: Captain America, which begins production next month in London. Introduced in Captain America #1 in 1941, the original Red Skull was George John Maxon, an American industrialist turned Nazi saboteur, but the character in the movie has been identified by Marvel Studios as Johann Schmidt, who was actually the second Red Skull in the comic continuity. Schmidt, a German orphan who survived a harsh upbringing, was working as a bellhop in a Berlin hotel when he was chosen by Hitler for special training that the Fuhrer supervised himself.

Weaving joins a cast that so far includes Chris Evans and Hayley Atwell. Weaving is perhaps best known for his work in the Matrix Trilogy (Agent Smith), V for Vendetta (V), and Lord of the Rings (Elrond). Weaving has also provided the voice of Decepticon leader Megatron in Michael Bay’s two live-action Transformers movies.

Dempsey in "Transformers 3"

Patrick Dempsey (Grey’s Anatomy) has joined the cast of Transformers 3 as Megan Fox’s boss, according to Variety. Fox and LaBeouf return to their roles from the first two films in the series.

Director Michael Bay will begin shooting the film this month, according to the report, to be ready for a July 1, 2011 release.

2009 Assorted Movie News

ComingSoon.net cited an interview with Terrence Howard at Military.com in which he revealed that he will begin filming Iron Man 2 in March of 2009.

Dan Mazeau is the latest screenwriter to be hired to work on an untitled Jake Gyllenhaal action film about lunar colonization. Director Doug Liman wrote the original screenplay with John Hamburg, and it was later revamped by Black Hawk Down author Mark Bowden.

CHUD.com confirmed fan speculation that Michael Bay's upcoming sequel Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen will draw on the mythology of the Transformers comics and the origin of a Lucifer-type character known as the Fallen.