Two brothers charged with trying to extort nearly $13,000 from Hollywood director Michael Bay (in photo) while he was shooting the latest “Transformers” film in Hong Kong have pleaded not guilty, local media reported Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2014. ANGELA WEISS/GETTY IMAGES/AFP
Two brothers who were charged of trying to extort nearly $13,000 from “Transformers” director Michael Bay while he was shooting the latest movie in Hong Kong have pleaded not guilty, according to local media.
Not too different from what we might see on the big screen in “Transformers,” Bay was attached by a man holding an air-conditioning unit. The man reportedly demanded HK$100,000 as compensation for filming in the Quarry Bay district in October.
Brothers Mak Chi-shing, 27, and Mak Chi-hang, 28 pleaded not guilty to charges of blackmail and assaulting a police officer at a district court on Tuesday.
Bay said that ““Every vendor where we shot got paid a fair price for our inconvenience, but he wanted four times that amount,” he said, adding that he told the man and his friends to “forget it.”
“He didn’t like that answer. So an hour later he came by my crew as we were shooting, carrying a long air-conditioner unit. He walked right up to me and tried to smack my face. But I ducked, threw the air unit on the floor and pushed him away. That’s when the security jumped on him. But it took seven big guys to subdue him. It was like a Zombie in Brad Pitt’s movie ‘World War Z’—he lifted seven guys up and tried to bite them,” Bay said.
The fourth Transformers movie, starring Mark Wahlberg and Nicola Peltz, is scheduled to open in June.
Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor and the city’s streets are expected to have been locations for the film.
With a report from Agence France-Presse
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