SOMETHING caught director Michael Bay's jet-lagged eyes as he strode into the room at Grand Hyatt Hotel in Seoul.

Bay was meeting a legion of regional reporters to talk about his new action flick Transformers, which opens in Singapore on Thursday.

'You can get this stuff already?' the lanky 1.9m-tall poster boy asked me, as he stopped to pick up a Bumblebee Transformers toy lying 'casually' by the side of my table.

'They're available at most departmental stores,' I offered, like a salesman fresh from the Great Singapore Sale.

Why Bay is amused to find that merchandise from his movie - based on a wildly-popular '80s cartoon series - is already flooding the market, is a bit of a surprise.

After all, at 42, he should know a thing or two about the art of selling and marketing. He spent his 20s making commercials for Nike, Reebok, Coca-Cola, Budweiser, Miller Lite and even won the Grand Prix Clio for Commercial of the Year 1995 for his 'Got Milk/Aaron Burr' commercial.

He also produced music videos for veteran musicians such as Tina Turner, and Lionel Richie.

Bay's directorial debut movie, Bad Boys (1995), raked in more than US$160 ($246m) million worldwide.

Like the rapid gunfire found in his distinctive action flicks, he released hit movie after hit movie - The Rock (1996), Armageddon (1998), Pearl Harbor (2001) and Bad Boys II (2003). Then came the downturn.

His last movie, The Island (2005), was a flop. Two years later, Bay is set to reclaim the box-office title. But why a toy story? It had been reported earlier that he had even dismissed Transformers as some silly toy movie.

'Steven Spielberg called me a year and a half ago and said he'd like me to direct Transformers. I have been offered a lot of superheroes movies before,' said Bay.

'I usually turned them down. But Steven is kind of a smart guy, maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt.'

Enticed, Bay flew to the Transformers school at Hasbro headquarters - the behemoth US toymaker behind the 20-year-old folklore and franchise.

'I have always been very interested in Japanese anime, the cartoons. I saw that if I can make this (movie) darker, and much tougher and more real and that started to interest me,' he said.

But it was not a totally smooth launch. After all, it's hard not to risk offending legions of Transformers diehards who have treated the series with cult reverence.

As news of Bay's involvement with the movie broke, the Internet was inundated with feedback - ranging from 'Michael Bay, you wrecked my childhood', to even death threats.

Even when filming started, the Transformers fever didn't stop.

'Our computer system from the art department was hacked into 39,000 times in one month. Some of the artwork actually got leaked out,' said Bay.

On the positive side, an Internet community abuzz with Transformers' topics gave the Internet-savvy director a chance to stay in the loop.

He also consulted with Transformers historians (gurus, he calls them) for ideas. For the movie, Bay's vision was to give the toy series a face-lift.

'The cartoon version is very boxy. I would love to do this for fans: take the original TV version and use it. Though it will look like the Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters,' said Bay, whose favourite characters are Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Frenzy.

'We need something very complex to fit into this real world. Our Optimus Prime has 10,000 moving parts. For me, the most difficult thing is adding the soul to the robots.'

Bay compares his killer bots to Jurassic Park's dinosaurs: 'You haven't seen robots or anything on this scale before. There are certain things that Bumblebee does that make you go wow, that thing exists.'

Besides looking good, he also wanted his Transformers to be armed with some cool 'ninja' moves. So martial artists were hired to act out the fighting scenes.

Despite the initial reservations, Bay feels that ultimately, he has won over the fans.

He quipped: 'Now I have fans who said 'We are so sorry, Michael Bay, you still suck but we love you'.'

EVERYTHING COUNTS

Bay had to wrestle with a tight production budget, which is a surprise for the A-list director who has long been associated with all things big - big budget, big stars, big sets and big explosions.

'I've only US$145m to make this movie. There are a lot of summer movies like Spider-Man 3, Pirates Of The Caribbean 3. They had US$300m plus to work with,' he declared unabashedly.

To cope, the marketing-friendly director decided to enlist the help of General Motors (GM), a good working partner from previous projects.

'They took me to Skunk Works - this company where they developed these concept cars. I saw that car and I go, that's the Bumblebee! It's a Camaro that comes out in 2009.'

With GM supplying the vehicles and retrofitting them, Bay said he was able trim US$3m off the budget.

The United States Department of Defence also helped to foot some of the production costs.

'You may not have noticed it, but we have some scenes in the movie for the Pentagon,' Bay said.

So has Michael Bay been transformed?

Looks like vintage Bay to me. At the end of the interview, he signed my Bumblebee toy.

I think I will learn from the master of salesmanship and put the toy up on eBay.

Any takers?