Michael Bay's website has confirmed what we already knew: Victoria's Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whitely will replace Megan Fox as the love interest in Transformers 3.  The casting of a model instead of an actress comes as a surprise to no one.  I don't know if Huntington-Whitely can act or not, but let's be honest: does it matter?  (the answer is "no") Bay and Huntington-Whiteley previously worked together on Bay's "A Thousand Fantasies" ad for Victoria's Secret.

Bay also spoke to the LA Times about the extensive shooting the film will be doing in the Los Angeles area.  Hit the jump for more on that.

Transformers 3 is slated to hit theaters on July 1, 2011.

The LA Times' Company Town reports that Transformers 3 should be a boost to the LA economy as the city has lost big budget features to other cities offering better tax incentives.  The film is slated to shoot six weeks of its 4 ½ month-long production in the city.  The production will travel to various locations in LA including Long Beach, West Hollywood, Century City and Malibu.  The other three months of filming will span the globe as the film travels to Chicago, Detroit, Washington and Cape Canaveral, Fla., along with a few foreign locales, including Russia and an undisclosed African country.  I hope that despite the numerous locations, Bay won't repeat one of his many gaffes from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen where the characters enter the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. and exit out the back into a desert.  I don't mind Transformers 3 spanning the globe.  It just want it to have a sense of how geography works.