Michael Bay, already the master of cinematic destruction, may very well have topped himself in the on-screen chaos and carnage department with "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," his third and supposedly final robot romp. Whether or not Bay continues on with "Transformers" is still up for some debate, but for right now, the director himself has no doubts about his next project: "Pain & Gain."
Two years ago, Bay told MTV News that he was pursuing "a small little movie" that would be in the vein of Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction." Since then, we've learned a bit more — that it focuses on extortion and abductions in the Florida criminal underworld, that it's based on a true story, and that it's "a dark comedy." Now, we know something else about "Pain & Gain" … it's his next movie.
"I'm still going to do it," Bay told us at the Moscow premiere of "Transformers." "I'm going to do it next."
Bay said that the size and scope of this next project is still fairly small — in the neighborhood of a $20 million budget, he says — and that there will be no 3-D component to the film, despite his recent immersion in the filmmaking technique with "Dark of the Moon." As for what comes next, it's all up in the air… though don't put too much stock in those earlier reports that Bay and "Twilight" favorite Taylor Lautner are teaming up together.
"I'm not sure," he said about that topic. "I don't know. I meet a lot of actors, and who knows?"
One thing that he's still hoping to make (and we're still hoping to see) is "Bad Boys 3," though it's just a matter of nailing down a concrete time frame with Will Smith, Martin Lawrence and the rest of the creative team.
"We talk about it," he said. "It's hard to get our schedules together but it's great working with those guys."
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