Megan Fox Cast in Michael Bay's Ninja Turtles Movie After Epic Feud

USMagazine, Friday, February 22, 2013, 6:00am (PST)

After a very public falling out, Megan Fox and Michael Bay are back on good terms. The actress has been cast in Bay's upcoming live-action, CGI hybrid Nina Turtles, the producer announced via his official website Feb. 21. "TMNT: We are bringing Megan Fox back into the family!" he wrote.

Fox, 26, will play April O'Neil, the human friend of the Ninja Turtles. Bay will produce Ninja Turtles via his Platinum Dunes partners Brad Fuller and Andrew Form; Wrath of the Titans' Jonathan Liebesman has been tapped to direct.

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Fox appeared in Bay's first two Transformers movies before he replaced her with model-turned-actress Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in the third installment, 2011's Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Fox famously trashed her role in the first film, telling Entertainment Weekly in 2009, "I'm terrible in it. It's my first real movie and it's not honest and not realistic. The movie wasn't bad, I just wasn't proud about what I did."

The following year, she told Wonderland magazine that Bay, 48, is "like Napoleon and he wants to create this insane, infamous mad-man reputation. He wants to be like Hitler on his sets, and he is. So, he's a nightmare to work for."

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Executive producer Steven Spielberg advised Bay to fire Fox, the director told GQ in 2011 "She was in a different world, on her BlackBerry," Bay explained of choosing to replace the actress with Huntington-Whiteley, 25. "You gotta stay focused. And you know, the Hitler thing."

Bay insisted he "wasn't hurt" by Fox's snipe. "Because I know that's just Megan. Megan loves to get a response. And she does it in kind of the wrong way. I'm sorry, Megan. I'm sorry I made you work twelve hours. I'm sorry that I'm making you show up on time. Movies are not always warm and fuzzy."

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Series star Shia LaBeouf defended Bay's decision, telling the magazine, "Criticism is one thing. Then there's public name-calling, which turns into high school bashing. Which you can't do. She started sh-t talking our captain."

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Fox -- who has since welcomed a son, Noah, with husband Brian Austin Green -- was applauded for standing up to Bay by her Friends With Kids costar Chris O'Dowd in March 2012. "Who wouldn't have a fallout with [Bay]?" the 33-year-old Irish actor told The Toronto Sun. "It's one of the sexist things I've ever seen. She called him an a--hole. Well, he is a f-cking a--hole. She's not the only one who has said that. Why has she been singled out?"

Ninja Turtles is slated for release in 2014.

This article originally appeared on Usmagazine.com: Megan Fox Cast in Michael Bay's Ninja Turtles Movie After Epic Feud