Michael Bay's blitz worked: the giant robots will be hitting the big screen a day earlier than expected. IGN spoke with Paramount reps earlier today and confirmed the start date of "Transformers" will be Tuesday, July 3.  Director Bay had been campaigning the studio for the earlier release, and after the announcement this week that "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" will be opening sooner (and cutting into opening week profits), Paramount agreed.  Tuesdays aren't the best opening days, but with the holiday on the Fourth, many moviegoers don't have to go to work that Wednesday.  Bay is hoping this will bolster ticket sales in a season where "Largest Opening Ever For" has been attached to every tentpole released so far.

Bay seems to be proud of his creation, though it wasn't an easy start.  "Steven [Spielberg] called me I think a year ago last April, and my first thought was, 'No, I'm not interested.  Just because I thought, 'O.K., how am I going to do a toy movie?' And then when I went to Hasbro I realized, 'O.K., start over and go for the realistic alien invasion robot movie on Earth.' So with that thinking in mind, that's how I went about it."

He continued: "It's got a lot of action, but it's very funny.  And it's got heart. I only wanted to do Transformers if I could do it realistic. And from what I've seen, what we've done with our digital studies, is putting in real world stuff that has lots of effects around that are real effects. That's how we make it realistic."

Producer Tom DeSanto added, "The thing that attracted me to Transformers at first was they're great characters.  You just instantly got pulled into the mythology. Optimus Prime and Megatron weren't robots. These were almost Shakespearean type characters that had all this drama and all this background. And that's the great thing about this world, that it's not just about robots. The robots are great. When you see this stuff, you're going to go, 'I have never seen that before ever in my life.' And you're going to believe it. You're going to believe that that truck or that car is actually standing there, but you're going to care. And that's the key. … In order to adapt properties like this you need to make changes, but you need to stay true to the soul of what it is and the spirit of what it is."  Spoken like a true fan, and reassuring to those of us who still grin a little when we see a yellow VW go by.

Finally, rumors are floating around that P'mount has already signed up for two more Transformers films, so sequel fanatics, pay attention to the first one and cross your fingers.