Michael Bay survived the attack. Consistent with the reports that the attackers were asking for money, the Transformers director has identified extortion as the motive.

 In the director's personal blog, he addresses the question and officially confirms the reports of the incident: "Yes, some drugged up guys were being belligerent asses to my crew for hours in the morning of our first shoot day in Hong Kong. It was like a zombie in Brad Pitt's movie 'World War Z' - he lifted seven guys up and tried to bite them."

(Bay was referring to the vendor who stormed onto the set of his movie early Thursday and wielded an air conditioner unit in the direction of his head)

"Every vendor where we shot got paid a fair price for our inconvenience, but he wanted four times that amount. I personally told this man and his friends to forget it - we were not going to let him extort us. He didn't like that answer. So an hour later he came by my crew as we were shooting, carrying a long air conditioner unit. He walked right up to me and tried to smack my face, but I ducked, threw the air unit on the floor and pushed him away. That's when the security jumped on him."

"It took 15 Hong Kong cops in riot gear to deal with these punks," Bay said.

"He (the vendor) actually bit into one of the guard's Nike shoe. Insane. Thank god it was an Air Max - the bubble popped, but the toe was saved."

So the rumor that they were actually asking for a refund due to the atrocity of the preceding Transformers movies was not accurate.