In light of Ryan Hall dropping out of NYC, one big question came to mind: what will come of his as yet unfinished documentary ‘41st Day’? Funding for the project was raised through a Kickstarter campaign, but the project has stalled since Hall hasn’t completed a marathon in over two years now.
In 2012 Hall DNF’d in the Olympic marathon and then didn’t make it to the starting line in NYC (the race ended up being cancelled, but he pulled out before the storm interfered). The woes followed him into 2013, where he first withdrew from Boston and now NYC once again. This begs the question: Is Hall really hurt or does he just not want to finish this movie?
Word is that the frustrated filmmakers have sold the rights to the footage and edited material they have to Michael Bay and Paramount Pictures. With these rights, Bay will finish it as part of the plot of Transformers IV. How will this be done? It remains to be seen.
Details of the script are hard to find as of yet. Bay is being tight-lipped about it and for good reason. He’s taken a beating over leaked details on future projects like the TMNT reboot and even the adult entertainment industry was upset over the unnecessary explosions and subpar dialogue contained in his own “unauthorized” sex tape. If the porn industry thinks your dialogue is terrible then you should really consider a career change.
So far the plot revolves around one of two scenarios: in one, Mark Wahlberg is somehow in outerspace where the shape-shifting robots battle it out in a fast-paced and unclear fashion, for some reason that a baffling amount of people will pay to see. The other scenario is all of the Transformers team up and return to Earth to prevent Shia LeBouef from impregnating Megan Fox.
Wahlberg has been seen running quite a bit lately so it makes sense if Hall and his story are being worked in. A trending rumor is that Optimus Prime mistakes Hall for Megatron during a training run and liquefies him after a very brief battle. Marky Mark then vows to win NYC in honor of Hall, in what ends up being a very poorly written attempt at an emotional, motivational speech.
As news of this starts to leak out, Ryan Hall is considering shifting the focus of his Steps Foundation from helping people to get clean water in Mozambique to stopping Michael Bay. “The thought of Michael Bay ruining my own personal story, much like he’s ruined everything else that he’s touched, is horrifying. It’s more painful than watching my Olympic dreams vanish on the streets of London.”
As far as the poor souls who invested in the documentary, the studio hasn’t confirmed anything yet. When we reached out to Brian Goldner, the CEO of Hasbro, he stopped rolling around in a pile of money to say that “each investor will receive a ticket to an advanced screening of the new Transformers movie, along with an extra large popcorn. The Bumblebee-themed popcorn container doubles as a vomit bucket, which most test audiences ended up using.” Sounds classy.
Bay did go on the record to say that “we’re done with all the robot action and shooting is coming to a conclusion soon.” Off camera he went on to say that, much like with the first three, he’ll just stitch it together in some way that makes it watchable and that he didn’t have time for fluff like plot, dialogue and strong character development.
***
In all seriousness, we wish nothing but a speedy recovery for Ryan Hall. Injuries suck and we don’t want to pile onto the guy’s problems. If anything, this was just a good opportunity to rip on Michael Bay. That guy generates more hazardous material than the coal industry. I got tricked into seeing Pain & Gain and I’m still bitter about that. And although quotes were written in jest, I’m pretty certain that I’m not too far off on my guesses for the movie.