Avengers: Infinity War - 10 Things We Learned From The Directors' Roundtable

9. Ryan Coogler & Jon Favreau Have Praise For Michael Bay's Transformers

Of all the movies to be namedropped by this cabal of Marvel filmmakers, it was pretty surprising to hear Michael Bay's Transformers complimented by not just one director, but two. Jon Favreau got the ball rolling:

"At the time [production started on Iron Man] Transformers was being made, so I was real confident that hard surfaces would look good in CG. I tended to not really always buy CGI at the time."

Ryan Coogler later followed up with his own approval of the movie's ground-breaking visual effects:

"I remember that like it was yesterday, the work ILM was doing, you know, like seeing the Transformers, seeing Optimus Prime's foot and all the gears spinning, and then seeing Iron Man."

Granted, the pair didn't exactly lobby for the movie's storytelling qualities, but it's nevertheless interesting how many top-tier filmmakers have a respect for Bay's craft, Christopher Nolan being another noted supporter.

Amusingly, this also led into an anecdote about Coogler being in attendance as a film student when Iron Man was being premiered in Hollywood. Almost a decade before he joined the MCU, he got to share the room with Favreau and Robert Downey Jr., with little clue of what the future would hold.