Bitching about the vapidity of tentpoles is the new black. "The Dark Knight Rises" cinematographer Wally Pfister recently disparaged the shooting clumsiness of "The Avengers" in an interview, Paul Bettany admitted that he's never bothered to watch any of the "Iron Man" movies he's in (he plays the robot voice of Tony Stark's digital butler Jarvis) and finally, Australian actor Hugo Weaving recently said he's not very keen on returning to Marvel's "Captain America" franchise (he plays the Red Skull villain).
And Weaving, who has already talked a bit of trash about Michael Bay's "Transformers" series in the past — claiming he had not seen any of the movies he had voiced (he plays Megatron) and sounding rather flippant about it — took a few more digs at the films again this week calling his voice work on the project "meaningless."
"It was one of the only things I've ever done where I had no knowledge of it, I didn't care about it, I didn't think about it," Weaving told Collider on the weekend. "They wanted me to do it. In one way, I regret that bit. I don't regret doing it, but I very rarely do something if it's meaningless. It was meaningless to me, honestly. I don't mean that in any nasty way."
Nasty or not, a lot of geek sites friendly to "Transformers" and Michael Bay raised their eyebrows and took notice. It didn't take long until the always vocal Michael Bay shot back on his website. Updated: Michael Bay has deleted his post, which doesn't do a lot of good because every site on on the Internet, including ours, has already copied and pasted it his statement.
"Do you ever get sick of actors that make $15 million a picture, or even $200,000 for voiceover work that took a brisk one hour and 43 minutes to complete, and then complain about their jobs?
With all the problems facing our world today, do these grumbling thespians really think people reading the news actually care about trivial complaints that their job wasn’t “artistic enough” or “fulfilling enough”? I guess The Hollywood Reporter thinks so. What happened to people who had integrity, who did a job, got paid for their hard work, and just smiled afterward? Be happy you even have a job – let alone a job that pays you more than 98% of the people in America.
I have a wonderful idea for all those whiners: They can give their “unhappy job money” to a wonderful Elephant Rescue. It’s the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Africa. I will match the funds they donate."
Of course, the filmmaker doesn't specifically call Weaving out, but it's obvious who he's talking about and we have to admit, we do like Bay's challenge and thoughts. "Transformers" films are meaningless, but Weaving's work on it sounded rather painless, so why bother publicly complaining? Does this mean Weaving won't return for "Trans4ormers" or "Transformers 4" or whatever the sorta-reboot might be? Bay did kick Megan Fox to the curb from the series after all her public complaints, so it's possible he could pull the same manuever here, but it's not like Weaving would be heartbroken. Will Megatron, killed off in the third film, return? Wasn't he killed off in each one and then resurrected? Do we even care? Enjoy your daily dose of film drama, we're returning to the salt mines…