Crazy Transformers Movie Report!

Wednesday, November 17th, 2004 1:32PM CST

Category: Rumors

Here at Seibertron.com, we get all manner of strange news and rumour reports passed to us. Today we received a news item that's quite strange indeed.

This item was forwarded to us attached to an invalid e-mail address, and allegedly contains a report from Yahoo! News. A link to the 'real' news story was given to us, but the link doesn't work - and unsurprisingly the story is nowhere to be found on the site.

Some of the information is incredibly suspect too. For example, according to the Internet Movie Database, the 'veteran actor' Ray MacDonald has only appeared in two Thai movies in his entire life......

So without further ado, here's the news story, provided simply for your entertainment. Remember people, take all of this with a truck full of salt! Do not take this article as fact ... it is definitely fiction.

The Transformers Get a Movie Makeover

November 16, 2004, 1:40 AM EST

By CHRISTY LEMIRE, AP Entertainment Writer

LOS ANGELES -- The Transformers, those familiar shape-changing robot toys from the 1980's, are preparing for their first live-action feature film. The highly anticipated movie is scheduled for a theatrical release of summer 2006, marking the Transformers' first return to the silver screen in almost two decades.

While Hasbro Properties Group retains creative control over the license, they have granted producers Don Murphy and Tom DeSanto a wide berth in presenting their vision of the popular robots in disguise. "The movie is going to break lots of new ground, in terms of what we can do with the characters and settings," says DeSanto. "We definitely plan on keeping true to the original vision of TRANSFORMERS while making it bigger, better, and more action packed than ever before."

Voice casting has begun for the stars of the film, which include Optimus Prime, commander of the Autobots who transforms into a tractor trailer truck, and his arch-enemy Megatron, who leads the Decepticons. The natural choices for the lead roles would be Garry Chalk and David Kaye, who have lent their voices to the characters in three separate Transformers series, and currently perform the roles on the televised TRANSFORMERS ARMADA and TRANSFORMERS ENERGON.

Principal casting has also begun for the human characters, who will co-star alongside the digitally-animated robots.

"The potential to promote TRANSFORMERS in a live action setting is enormous," explains Jane Ritson-Parsons, president of Hasbro Properties Group. "Our human actors will have a real synergy with the TRANSFORMERS that was never possible before."

Tony Michael Donnelley plays Spike, a human who befriends the Autobots and plays a key role in their adaptation to their new Earth vehicle forms. Benjamin Hendrickson plays the role of Sparkplug, father to Spike and a skilled mechanic--just the sort of friend an army of mechanical beings might need. Jamie Dudney plays Carly, girlfriend to Spike.

The Autobots aren't the only ones who will be making friends on Earth, however. Also joining the cast is veteran actor Ray MacDonald, who plays the malevolent scientist Doctor Arkeville.