Lorenzo di Bonaventura: The $7bn box office film producer talks Transformers and Michael Bay

Lorenzo di Bonaventura is one of the most successful film producers of all time. His movies have grossed more than $7bn at the global box office, and he has worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood.

The films Lorenzo has produced and executive produced include smash hits such as The Meg, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, Red (and Red 2), Maze Runner: The Death Cure, The Last Stand, Shooter, Constantine, Doom, the G.I. Joe movies and of course The Transformers franchise. He has worked with Hollywood legends including Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Keanu Reeves, Jason Statham, Anthony Hopkins, Mark Wahlberg, Dame Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to name but a few.

A few years ago, I caught up with Lorenzo for a quick chat about the film Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Paramount Pictures, the studio producing the movie, needed some help with a very delicate matter that I was able to provide assistance with, and to thank me for helping them, they arranged a call with Lorenzo from Chicago, and from the set of the latest big budget Transformers movie:

Lorenzo: Darren, how you doing?

Darren: Hey Lorenzo, thanks very much for joining me on this call! How’s it going over there in Chicago?

Lorenzo: Good, man, how about you?

Darren: I’m great, Lorenzo, thanks for asking. So, tell me, you’re currently shooting Transformers: Dark of the Moon in Chicago. There’s been a lot of excitement and anticipation online about what you guys are up to. Can you tell us anything about what you’ve been working on today?

Lorenzo: Well, as you know, Michael [Bay] and I prefer to try to keep as much secret of what’s going on as possible so it doesn’t hurt the viewing experience, because we’re always worried if people find out things, that doesn’t feel fresh.

But here’s what I will tell you about – I think one of the interesting things and decisions that Michael made was to choose Chicago for a large attack, if you would. He chose the city for a particular reason which I understood pretty well when he described it, but when I actually saw it occur, and saw the footage occur, it got me so excited, and the reason he chose Chicago is because in virtually every other urban city, skyscrapers and tall buildings are very close to one another – it’s very narrow in between them creating sort of a tunnel effect.

In Chicago they have very wide streets, and very big elements like the river that runs through it. That keeps the buildings at a distance from one another and the result of that is the scale of this movie is far bigger in feeling than either of the first two, because you can really feel the scale of it. Although we don’t have our Transformers of course on the set, you can see that even when you’re looking at the human beings they feel, in a way, more significant, because you can see more of the expanse of what’s going on. So, I think it’s going to have this tremendous effect on the movie – that it’s going to have this feeling of not being like the first and second movie.

Darren: You and Michael Bay have been shooting for some time now in Chicago. Does that mean the city plays a major role in the film? How much of the action actually takes place in Chicago?

Lorenzo: Well, there’s a large amount. It’s not the only [location of] action, but certainly the biggest action scenes in the movie occur here.

Darren: So reading between the lines, Lorenzo, can we assume the film’s climax takes place in Chicago?

Lorenzo: There’s a lot of the climax occurs here, there’s some other places it occurs as well, but there’s a lot of it that occurs here throughout. I’m trying to think as I answer the question – when you think about the overall movie, yeah, this is where the biggest action occurs by far and there’s a lot of different sequences that occur here.

Darren: With your second Transformers movie, Revenge of the Fallen, for me it seriously upped the stakes from the first movie in terms of action spectacle, but how does Dark of the Moon compare with the first two movies on that front?

Lorenzo: Well, I think Michael’s topped himself – he showed me the other day about seven minutes of cut footage. Now, I’ve been watching dailies and that’s one thing but when you sort of see it cut together with music. And there wasn’t one of us who saw it – Shia [LeBeouf], myself, and a bunch of us saw it – who literally looked at each other and said “there’s nothing in the first two movies of the scale”, and this is without the robots in it. So, imagine what it’s going to be like when we have the robots!

Darren: Speaking of the robots, I would be remiss if I didn’t ask, which characters are-

Lorenzo:
– you’re never going to get me to tell you!

Darren: Well, okay, perhaps you can’t tell us about any new characters, but how about the returning characters? Which characters are coming back for the third film, other than the obvious Optimus Prime and Bumblebee?

Lorenzo: We’ve always felt that, you know, Bumblebee and Optimus probably are the two most important Transformers and we wanted to make sure that both had very central roles in the movie, so that’s definitely occurred.

Darren:
What is it, do you think, that makes Transformers so successful, and the films do so well at the box office, where other movies based on toy lines perhaps have failed?

Lorenzo: Well, I think the biggest distinction in the fans, like yourself, who understand this is not a toy line, it’s a mythology, you know, there’s a giant amount of mythology that exists to draw from. There’s other toy lines which I’ve looked at myself and some probably will make good movies, but you have to invent it from whole cloth. This has great characters, they have personalities, they have a backstory, they have centuries of enmity between them, they have an underdog story in them. I mean, there’s so much material that I think it’s it is very clear to me that that’s what’s made it possible for us to be successful.

Darren:
Here’s a question I just have to ask – what is director Michael Bay like to work with on set?

Lorenzo: I love it, it’s so much fun! It’s like an adrenaline rush every day. He commands the set in a way like none other, and you are constantly racing from one spot to the other in his quest to get the most amount of every moment, the most amount of biggest bang, the most dramatic and emotional interchange. It’s really fun because a lot of sets you sit around on and you sort of go “okay, when’s the next shot?” You’re never doing that – you’re always moving the camera, he’s always moving, he’s always reaching beyond what you saw on the page, and that’s exciting for those of us sitting on the set.

Darren: And how much longer do you expect to be filming in Chicago?

Lorenzo: Towards the end of this month is when we finish here, and then we go on to Detroit.

Darren:
And not that I’m trying to pry anything out of you that you’re not allowed, to reveal but is that for another action sequence in Detroit.

Lorenzo:
No, our last production sequence is in Detroit as well.

Darren:
Now, obviously, there was an issue recently where some footage from the set was leaked, but just how soon is it likely to be before we see some official footage from the movie, maybe in the form of a teaser trailer?

Lorenzo: Er, that’s a good question. I don’t know the answer to that, I know that we’ve talked about marketing materials coming out late fall or early winter. Probably not until then at the earliest.

You know, we have the advantage in this movie if everybody knows we’re there, and shooting in 3D is more complex and we’re all learning a little bit about the process – not just of shooting, Michael learned that in about a day. It’s amazing, I heard a lot of these stories about how difficult it was, and how slow it was, and how cumbersome it was, and I’ll tell you he changed my perspective on it completely. Literally, one day, we did in pre-production of practice and then first day on the set we’re shooting away at 3D and there are some advantages and disadvantages.

So I don’t think it’s a hell of a lot different from a process point of view, but the post-process and how the film was actually processed and how you deliver elements into them – the 3D elements, the visual effects, and all that we’re all still trying to figure out exactly. I mean, obviously, we know how it works, but it’s new to us and so we’re on that learning curve.

Darren: Well, speaking of 3D, that’s a technology that’s still very much in its infancy. How much do you expect the 3d element will add to the overall cinema experience?

Lorenzo: Well, you know Michael is very demanding about visuals, so I am feeling that we’re gonna really, really like what’s occurred with 3D. We also have a subject matter and i’ll say there are 30-foot+ robots that are tremendously interesting in 3D.

Darren: Well, that sounds really interesting, and I can’t wait to see what transformers look like in 3D, but what about a young Lorenzo? What films did you used to enjoy growing up that perhaps inspired you to get into the film business in the first place?

Lorenzo: That’s a hell of a good question, I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that question! Er, Cool Hand Luke, The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, probably Godfather, maybe Star Wars too.

Darren: Star Wars, of course! I noticed there’s also a strong Marlon Brando influence on your film choices there.

Lorenzo: I guess there was, I didn’t mean it to me, but I think all those movies took you to a very different world. The French Connections is another movie that really influenced me, and you know those movies were very uncompromising in what they were trying to accomplish, and they really got me excited because of it. When I think about the very first time I was, like, completely blown away as a kid – sadly it tells you how old I am – but it was when I saw Bullet in the theatre. I think I was too young to see it, but boy was it cool!

Darren: It certainly was cool, and thank you very much for your time, Lorenzo. It’s been an absolute pleasure speaking with you and I can’t wait for this movie to come out

Lorenzo: My pleasure, and I appreciate you being helpful to us

That was me talking with Lorenzo di Bonaventura an interview I conducted several years ago during the production of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. If you’ve enjoyed this interview, please do me a massive favour and subscribe to this podcast on whichever medium you like to listen to podcasts on, and it would also be great if you could give me help me get the word out by leaving a five-star review.

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