Pete Davidson's Autobot Mirage Almost Appeared In A Michael Bay Transformers Film
In Steven Caple, Jr.'s new film "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts," Anthony Ramos plays a character named Noah who has fallen on financial hard times. In an act of desperation, he agrees to break into a museum to steal a car and sell it to Reek (rapper Tobe Nwigwe), an associate of his in the criminal underground. What Noah doesn't know is that the car he is stealing is, in fact, a robot in disguise. After a chase with the police — a chase in which the car seems to drive itself and project holographic duplicates into the lanes surrounding it — the robot transforms into a mechanical humanoid and introduces itself as Mirage. Mirage is a Transformer from the planet Cybertron, and who works as a soldier for the stern robot commander Optimus Prime. Mirage is voiced by Pete Davidson and is the "laidback" and "funny" Transformer, often cracking wise in front of the many other Transformers that manifest throughout the film.
In the 1984 animated "Transformers" TV series, Mirage was one of the core cast and was voiced by Frank Welker. He originally had the ability to transform into a 1979 Ligier JS11 Formula 1 racer, although, in the 2007 live-action film series (of which "Beasts" is a part), the robots can transform into almost any machine they want.
Deep-cut "Transformers" fans — that is, males born between 1977 and 1979 — likely remember the show's original Autobots lineup. Robot roll call: Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Mirage, Prowl, Jazz, Sideswipe, Ratchet, and a few others. Many of these characters, weirdly, don't appear in the first "Transformers" movie.
Indeed, Mirage was supposed to be a character in the 2011 film "Transformers: Dark of the Moon," as explained in a behind-the-scene documentary, available on the film's DVD release.
Dino
According to the documentary, screenwriter Ehren Kruger originally took one of the very minor robot characters from "Dark of the Moon" and named him Mirage, after the character he knew from the animated series. His version of the Mirage character was a mere Autobot spy who had little bearing on the film's story; Mirage only reported a few details back to Optimus Prime. To update the cars in "Dark of the Moon" and make them sexier, Mirage could now transform into a Ferrari 458 Italia, a car produced between 2009 and 2015, and which originally retailed for about $285,000.
Because Mirage was now an Italian sports car, however, that meant — to director Michael Bay — that the character now needed an Italian name. Kruger said:
"Early on, Enzo was sort of modeled on a character from the mythology called Mirage, and in an early draft of the script he had some powers of invisibility, the ability to cloak other objects. And as we pulled those out, we left the Mirage sort of name behind, but in that case, it was really important to Michael that this character has the personality of a Ferrari, so we really wanted that car in the movie. So we gave him an Italian accent and an Italian name."
The character is now referred to as alternately Dino or Enzo, and was played by Italian actor Francesco Quinn, son of Anthony. The name Enzo was confirmed by David Urich, the car coordinator on "Dark of the Moon," as the character was named after Enzo Ferrari. Confusingly, the character is named Dino in the film's credits.
Enzo/Dino/Mirage proved to be Quinn's final film role as he suffered a heart attack and died in 2011, shortly after the release of the film. R.I.P.