Michael Bay Offers Cash Prize to Anyone Who Finds “The Twins” in Transformers 3

After a few days of rising speculation (which was accidentally based on year-old news), both Paramount and Michael Bay have come down hard on rumors that Skids and Mudflap, the (to put it nicely) off-color caricatures who appeared as Autobot brothers in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, will be appearing in Dark of the Moon. According to Transformers World, Paramount specifically asked them to clarify that

The Twins will NOT be in the 3rd film, and that the featured cars, are not actually in the movie.

To back up this assertion, Michael Bay has made an even stranger offer to first day viewers of Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

In a post on the Official Michael Bay Forums (there is such a thing?), he stated:

After the internet posting of a nice review by someone who saw Transformers Dark of the Moon, the writer had not been clear on one thing. He misstated that the Twins are in the film. They are not.

So I am offering a $25,000 REWARD to anyone who can find them performing in Transformers 3, on July 1, when the movie opens.

Which is… just… Bay wants people to think that the Twins might be in the movie opening night and go see it… but he also wants to let us know that the Twins aren’t in the movie.

Interesting. Except now I kind of hope they are in the movie, because if viewers can spot the Frozen Han Solo in Firefly, they can certainly spot some cars in Transformers, and Bay didn’t say the first person to find them on opening night. He said anyone.

Which probably just means that they aren’t there at all.

Or Bay drastically underestimates the fannish OCD of his viewership. I’m guessing it’s the former, but then, I’m a perennial optimist.

(via io9.)