Alternate real life production history: Major hurdles for the film's initial production stages included the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike as well as the threat of strikes by other guilds, Michael Bay made the hard discission to step down as Director of the Second Transformers Film, telling Paramount that it was too big of a risk, The Film's writer Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, and Composer Steve Jablonsky also left the project, for the same reasons as Michael Bay. Paramount ultimately ended up hiring Stephen Sommers to Write to Direct the Film, Resulting in Chris Columbus and Joss Whedon taking over as Director and Writer of Sommers' other film, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Sommers wrote a Decent, Emotional and compelling Script which was the only draft made and was used as the Final film. This also resulted in all the first film's Voice Cast (with the only exception of Peter Cullen) being recast, including Mark Ryan being replaced as Bumblebee by Johnny Yong Bosch, Robert Foxworth being replaced as Ratchet by Alun Armstrong, Jess Harnell being replaced as Ironhide by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (due to the discission of wanting Ironhide with a birtish accent), Hugo Weaving being replaced as Megatron by Arnold Vosloo (who had worked with Sommers on the Mummy), Charlie Adler being replaced as Starscream by Michael Wincott.
