When Michael Bay, cinema’s reigning champion of vehicular carnage, thinks your idea for an explosive, special-effects-laden blockbuster is lame, you’ve got problems.
A few years ago, Bay, the director of “Armageddon,” “The Rock” and “Bad Boys,” was in his editing room when Steven Spielberg called to offer him a new project: an action movie about giant robots that metamorphose into cars, trucks and planes.
As Bay recalled in a recent interview, “I’m like, ‘OK, great, great, great.’ And I hung up the phone. And I’m like, ‘That sounds like a dumb idea.’”

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What helped persuade Bay to take the first “Transformers” movie — which in 2007 took in more than $700 million worldwide at the box office, and whose sequel, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” opened Wednesday — was a visit to the Pawtucket, R.I., headquarters of Hasbro, which creates the Transformers toys.
There Bay, 44, was given a thorough education on the narrative embedded in the 25-year-old toy line: a back story about warring factions of valiant Autobots and nefarious Decepticons who bring their battle to Earth from their home planet, Cybertron.
Bay was sold.
“I don’t consider this a toy,” he said. “It’s not. To me it’s the furthest thing from it. It was about the mythology and that there was a story here.”
For Hasbro, this summer will see not one but two of its most lucrative properties spun into big-budget movies. The “Transformers” sequel will be followed on Aug. 7 by a live-action adaptation of its G.I. Joe toys, called “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.”  The pair of films is the payoff of a strategy that the toy company has been cultivating for nearly a decade: infusing movie-friendly story lines into its popular playthings and teaching Hollywood that these stories can be translated onto cinema screens. It’s an approach that many other toymakers also are taking, unwilling to cede theater marquees to the creations of comic book publishers such as Marvel and DC.  As fans and collectors know, the Hasbro toys have histories that stretch back for decades.
The original G.I. Joe, a 12-inch-tall soldier known as “America’s moveable fighting man,” was introduced by Hasbro in 1964. After the Vietnam War, Joe’s connection to the U.S. military was played down, and in 1982 the soldier was recommissioned as a pocket-size special missions force of numerous agents. The Joe team was given a nemesis, Cobra, a ruthless terrorist organization (back when such things seemed suitable for youthful reveries).
Two years later, Hasbro imported a series of action figures created by the Japanese toy company Takara, consisting of robots that disguise themselves as vehicles and other technology, calling them Transformers.
The G.I. Joe and Transformers toys, and their comic book and cartoon spinoffs, dominated the marketplace in the 1980s. But in the 1990s, their popularity faded as children turned their attention to newer phenomena such as Pokemon and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
“There’s certainly a fad element to what kids are into,” said Gareb Shamus, the publisher of the collectibles magazine ToyFare. Some properties, he said, “just need to take a breather.

ink> Transformers aren't just titans at the box office, they're flying off store shelves, too. Toy giant Hasbro said Monday strong sales of the morphing robots as well as G.I. Joe helped its quarterly profits crush Wall Street expectations. Summer movie tie-in toys have been one bright spot for toymakers during the consumer-spending slowdown. Hasbro has been buoyed in recent years by toys tied to movies, including this summer's hit 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen' and the upcoming 'G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra.' 'We couldn't be more pleased with the performance both at the box office and at retail,' said CEO Brian Goldner. 'Retailers around the world recognize that certain brands like Transformers bring to life the entire store for consumers, which translates into premium placement and representation across multiple departments for those brands.' Wells Fargo Securities analyst Tim Conder said in a report Monday that he expects the benefit to Hasbro from movie-related toys to continue into 2010, when the company will also have toys tied to the 'Iron Man 2' and 'Toy Story 3' movies. Goldner also said Hasbro sales and profits are likely to climb for the full year. Still, weak international sales due to the stronger dollar, as well as costs related to a joint venture, crimped results in the latest quarter. Another weak spot was games and puzzles. Hasbro owns a multitude of game titles including Scrabble and Monopoly - and sales in that division fell 17%. But the company said that was due to the timing of shipments for promotional programs rolling out over the next few months. Net income grew 28% to $39.3 million, or 26 cents per share, from $37.5 million. Revenues inched up 1% to $792.2 million, falling slightly shore of expectations

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Robots are all the rage this summer as toys from the latest 'Transformers' and 'Terminator' movies fill stores, and Carnegie Mellon University spinoff Bossa Nova Robotics Inc. plans to start selling its own two playthings with personalities in coming weeks on cable shopping channel QVC and online retailer Amazon.com.
The yellow, gorilla-faced Prime-8 and chubby pink penguin Penbo showed off their tricks, speed and agility Thursday at an event at the Oakland campus.
 
They're the first toys developed with technology from CMU's Robotics Institute to debut commercially, but others are in the design and prototype stages.
For consumers, 'The most successful application for robots so far is in the toy business,' said John Feghali, one of Bossa Nova's three founders.
Inspired by Furby and other interactive toys, Prime-8 and Penbo use mechanics adapted from a cockroach-like robot named RHex created several years ago at CMU.
Both toys walk or run on two rotating limbs, Prime-8 on his arms and Penbo on her legs.
They don't trip on carpet as many toy robots do, their creators say. And using sensors, they respond to their owners' moves, play games and dance and fall asleep if they're ignored. Blow a kiss to Penbo, and she'll kiss back.
Prime-8, geared for boys ages 8 to 12, goes on sale for $99.99 on QVC on July 25. Penbo, for girls 4 to 6 and costing $69.99, will follow with her first TV appearance in mid-August.
Amazon.com will feature both products starting Aug. 1, and they'll be in stores for the holidays.
Feghali along with Bossa Nova cofounders David Palmer and Sarjoun Skaff tested their play robots with children at Carnegie Science Center on the North Shore. The toys will continue to be used there as part of the Robot Workshop at the science center's new Roboworld, billed as the world's biggest permanent robotics exhibition.
Feghali, Palmer and Skaff met through CMU, shared a liking for bossa nova music and talked about starting a robotics business.
They decided to make entertaining and educational toys that would be priced competitively after watching a group of toddlers giggle as RHex chased them around a campus lawn.
The partners founded their company four years ago, secured money from several sources including the Pittsburgh Technology Council's annual EnterPrize contest, and brought in former Mattel, Hasbro and MGA Entertainment executive Martin Hitch as CEO.
While toy robots undoubtedly are popular with kids, gauging sales isn't easy.
Electronics claimed $865 million of the toy industry's total $21.6 billion in sales last year, but interactive technology is showing up in lots of classic playthings ranging from dolls to board games. The Japan Robotics Association forecasts that the market for personal and lifestyle robots will grow to $15 billion by 2015.
For kids, 'Robotic toys are emulating what