Transformers 3 casts Malkovich? And Ken Jeong??

Wow, I’m not sure I saw this coming. Michael Bay posted an update to his blog this morning with an update on TRANSFORMERS 3. Apparently also unhappy with Variety’s online paywall, he decided to forgo the usual announcement of cast in the trades and just reveal it right on his site. Turns out John Malkovich, Frances McDormand and Ken Jeong (THE HANGOVER, “Community”) have all signed on to star in the film.

Sez Bay: Transformers 3 has been going very well. We are going to shoot in LA, Chicago, Washington DC, Florida, Texas, Africa, Moscow, and China. On the talent front, we just locked in Frances McDormand and John Malkovich. Both amazing actors I’ve always wanted to work with. We also just got Ken Jeong, he is the super funny actor stuck in the trunk from “Hangover” and the Doctor from “Knocked Up.” We start shooting pre-shoots in about one month.

And that’s sadly it. No news on whether the three will be playing live-action characters or voicing robots in the film but I doubt they’d bring in Frances McDormand just to have her voice a robot. As for Malkovich, I’m leaning more towards the voice side (Unicron? Omega Supreme?) but maybe he just wanted to satiate his fanboy villain needs after SPIDER-MAN 4 went south (and I’m only speculating that he’d be playing a villain).

I’m sure more news will be breaking on this throughout the day so stay tuned for more updates…

UPDATE – That didn’t take long. McDormand will be playing the National Intelligence Director while Malkovich will have a role as Sam Witwicky’s first boss (this is what you do with Malkovich??).