So the guy who produced "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" could be directing a movie about the Benghazi attack.
Yes, Michael Bay, director of "Transformers," "Bad Boys" — king of "blow-crap-up" franchises — will reportedly tackle the true story of the attack on Sept. 11, 2012, that left a U.S. ambassador dead.
Variety reported that Bay is in talks and noted rather oddly that the project "fits into [Bay's] wheelhouse of action-heavy material and could bear similarities to ... Bay's own hostage pic 'The Rock.'"
OK ... because this ...
"This summer, get ready to rock!"
... and this are the same. Four Americans were killed in the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.
The Hollywood Reporter does a slightly more elegant job of summarizing the news: "In a massive change of pace, Michael Bay is going from toy tentpole to a Benghazi political drama."
Well, political, yes, but the book the movie will be based on focuses more on the attack itself, not the aftermath.
It's "13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi." Paramount, the studio behind "Transformers," acquired the rights to the book.
So the move would make sense for Paramount: Bay has delivered blockbusters for the studio. And ScreenCrush speculates on one other possible choice: Bay could bring in Mark Wahlberg, who starred in the most recent "Transformers" and had big success with true-story military pic "Lone Survivor."
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the "13 Hours" script, like the book, will center on a security team of six that tried to defend the Americans stationed in Benghazi.
It was penned by Chuck Hogan, who wrote Ben Affleck hit "The Town."
Truly, this could be a recipe for success. Bay said in 2013:
"I'm done doing robots. I'm going to shoot myself if I do another robot. I've got to do something small."
With a budget of $30 million to $40 million as opposed to $200 million to $250 million, this is definitely small. But with a story that felt tragic to Americans and raised questions of cover-ups by their own government, the task is big. Bigger than robots.
This video includes an image from Getty Images.
