Transformers: Dark of the Moon has started a very big fight in my home. My husband and I are filmmakers and we usually agree on everything, or we at least see eye to eye, until now. I read an article in Details magazine about Shia LaBeouf and his scrapes with the law, his drinking habits and his next film. Pretty normal young Hollywood behavior. Shia was quoted as being dissatisfied with the second Transformers and Indiana Jones 4. Blah, blah, blah. It's been two, and three years, respectively since these films bowed. They've made a lot of money. Shia has gone on to other films. Whether he liked them or not is immaterial, whether he feels his performances were good enough in them also does not matter. He will be judged by fans, and history. Film, if nothing else, is a permanent record of your moment. As long as there is a fan watching your film, you are a part of history and frozen in that moment.
Having said all of this, you may be asking what caused the fight? Megan Fox did. I made an argument that Shia's comments degrading the films he's been in lately, were bordering on unprofessional. Then I asked my husband why it was that Megan was fired over her comments but it's okay for Shia to say whatever he wants without consequence? I also asked why was it that Megan's complaints about her character, her wardrobe, or her make-up in Transformers 2 was called a feminist awakening instead of a maneuver to get more money? I argued that Megan was required to run around and perform at an athletic level just like Shia, only she was required to do so while wearing 6 inch, stiletto high-heels. In the first Transformers film her character hot-wired a tow-truck and drove it backwards so that Bumble Bee could fire at the Decepticons. In the second she was in charge of a leg-humping Decepticon defector. Why was her role diminished into nothing more than eye-candy and sex jokes? Why was she paid so much less than Shia?
My husband argued that she was "worth less" in box-office receipts and therefore she was paid less. I can understand his logic, Shia's other films made more money that Megan's outside of the Transformers franchise. I argued that a true comparison could not be made. Audiences went to see Indiana Jones 4 because of the franchise, not just Shia. The same is true for Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Shia chose some very smart properties to hitch his rising star to. The same cannot be said of Megan. She chose to team up with Diablo Cody (who was being mentored to some degree by Steven Spielberg through a production deal to create The United States of Tara). Megan was working for Spielberg through the Transformers franchise. This should have been a good match for both women, but it turned into a nightmare and ruined both of their careers. Maybe it was the advertising, the timing, the genre or giving Cody too long of a creative rope with which to hang her self. Whatever the reason, it simply did not work. Megan was blamed for the failure of Jennifer's Body singularly. She was then ridiculed for her role in Jonah Hex. The only thing Megan was guilty of was choosing a couple of bad movies that seemed great on paper.
Now let’s look at Shia’s choices. Some fans were disappointed by Indiana Jones 4 and the Wall Street sequel, but no one blamed Shia for the short-comings of either film. Actors don't have that much power over movie audiences. Fans become excited by ideas, images, or a director's reputation for delivering a certain experience and they crave that feeling again. Some people will go to a movie to see a certain actor if the movie aligns with their taste, and some will avoid certain movies because an actor they hate is starring in it. But overall, actors do not make or break a film. Films make stars famous. Stars do not make films famous. In the end, the directors are usually blamed or praised for the failure or success of a film. Blaming Megan Fox for the failure of two films didn’t seem logical.
Therefore, my husband's argument did not make sense to me. I can understand if Spielberg had a personal problem with Megan, did not want to work with her, and that his solution was to fire her. I can also understand if Megan saw that Shia was paid more for Transformers 2 than she was she may have asked for (or demanded) more money, and that’s the real reason she was fired. It could have really been because Megan equated Michael Bay to Hitler and Spielberg did not take kindly to that metaphor. It may have been that Shia and Megan hooked up and one or both of them did not feel comfortable working with the other.
We'll never know what really happened behind the scenes. We can only assume, speculate and piece things together from interviews and rumors. My guess was that Megan's attitude was less about feminism and more about money. The final proof that actors don't mean much to a franchise, the box-office receipts for Transformers:Dark of the Moon. We'll see if replacing a director has any effect on profits when the newly re-vamped Spiderman franchise hits theaters next summer. I hate to think of artists as replaceable but Hollywood has proven that the only thing it's loyal to is the bottom line.
