Here’s the most shocking news of the day: Michael Bay’s next movie will be a small crime flick, budgeted at a tiny (by his standards) US$20 million. That’s his cheapest production to date, and one likely without any widespread destruction and massive explosions involved. What’s the world coming to. But apparently, this is a project the “Transformers” director has been interested in for years.

Called “Pain And Gain”, the film is based on the true story of the Sun Gym Gang, a pair of bodybuilders named Daniel Lugo and Adrien Doorbal who led an extortion and kidnapping plot before getting their dumb asses arrested. Set to star are Mark Wahlberg, Ed Harris, Anthony Mackie, Ken Jeong and Dwayne Johnson, who plays Paul Doyle, a barman who got entangled in the crime.

Comingsoon managed to catch up with Johnson earlier this week at the ongoing CinemaCon (a convention for theatre owners in the US), where he was presented with the “Action Star of the Decade” award. Johnson was asked about the Bay film, and he gave quite an unexpected response:

“It’s a smaller-scale movie, not only for Michael Bay, but it’s a smaller movie, but also keep in mind that ‘Pain and Gain’ has been Michael’s passion project for years now so when someone like Michael who visually, stylistically… he’s a brilliant, brilliant filmmaker, to be able to take that spirit and engage it in a passion project that he loves. I think out of that we’re going to find some really special things. I have had the greatest time playing this character, because the craziest part about this is that every day when I wrap–whether it’s 3:00 in the morning or 6:00 at night–I go home thinking, ‘Jesus Christ, this shit really happened, all this crazy shit happened.’”

Really, Dwayne? Bay is a “brilliant, brilliant filmmaker”? I’ve seen no such evidence thus far. The guy gave us some very solid pics early in his career, but has just descended into crapness in the last decade. Hopefully, with the restraints of a modest budget and a (reportedly) good script by Scott Rosenberg & Christopher Markus, he may live up to The Rock’s praise.

“Pain And Gain” does not have a release date yet. More details as we get em…

No comments yet. You should be kind and add one!

Leave A Reply

By submitting a comment you grant Electro Shadow a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution. Inappropriate and irrelevant comments will be removed at an admin’s discretion. Your email is used for verification purposes only, it will never be shared.