Random Movie Trivia - Transformers

Here is the next edition in our weekly Random Movie Trivia post.  Enjoy:

Transformers

• For the scene where Megatron corners Sam at the top of a tall building and Sam clings on to a statue out of sheer panic and fright, Shia LaBeouf was actually on top of the building wearing a safety harness, but with no safety net beneath him, and so his terror was real.
• Michael Bay originally turned down directing the film, considering it "a stupid toy movie." However, he wanted to work with Steven Spielberg and wanted to make the first family film of his career, and being a car buff, the idea of sentient cars interested him.
• Tyrese Gibson paid the filmmakers to get him a role in the film.
• Sam's eBay name LadiesMan217 refers to Michael Bay's birthday: February 17th. The eBay name was an actual user name with last activity at the same date the movie was released.
• The character of Mikaela Banes is named after the director Michael Bay.
• The word "transformer" is used only once in the entire film, when Ron Witwicky decides to call the City ("We got a blown transformer.").
• The female Autobot Arcee was going to appear in the film, but the writers couldn't properly explain the concept of robot gender in the film, so she was removed and replaced with Ironhide.
• That was a real truck of Furbies blown up in the film.
• Amanda Seyfried and Emma Stone both auditioned for the role of Mikeala.
• In the scene where Secretary of Defense Keller (Jon Voight) and other military personnel are walking briskly through a tunnel, the man to his left, who is listed in the credits as a 'Four Star General', is the actor Steven Ford, the son of former U.S. President Gerald Ford.
• Patton Oswalt was offered, but declined, the role of Glenn Whitman.
• The sequence where Bonecrusher smashes a bus in half was an actual stunt filmed live on camera. The bus was constructed with a split-line and had cables built in (which held the bus together until they were cut off), as well as explosives and cannons (which were used to blow the bus apart).
• Michael Clarke Duncan was originally going to play a member of Sector 7. But his character was cut out in the movie.
• Ewan McGregor was considered to voice Bumblebee and Ratchet.
• Optimus Prime transforms three times in the film, and it is always from truck form to robot form, never the reverse.
• Howard Stern was originally approached to make a quick voice cameo in the film, but his agent talked him out of it.
• Michael Bay wanted Steve Buscemi to play Agent Simmons, but Buscemi was unavailable due to shooting other films.

"The real reason men went and saw this movie."