Megan Fox (birthname: Megan Denise Fox) is a rare sex symbol and pin-up girl, in a generation unknown to many of them. Fox’s feature debut was as the antagonist to star
Lindsay Lohan’s hero in the Disney teen musical,
Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004), with Adam Garcia, Glenne Headly, Alison Pill, and Carol Kane. The first blockbuster movie for Fox was
Michael Bay’s original
Transformers (2007), with Shia LaBeouf,
Tyrese Gibson,
Josh Duhamel, and Anthony Anderson, earning a knockout $709 million worldwide, and spawning a sequel,
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), in which Fox continued her role as Mikaela.
Fox was cast in the far less successful British comedy,
How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008), directed by Robert B. Weide, and co-starring Simon Pegg, Kirsten Dunst, Danny Huston, Gillian Anderson, and Jeff Bridges. After a co-starring role in star-filmmaker Thomas Dekker’s drama,
Whore (2008), Megan Fox had her first significant starring role as the title character in the Karyn Kusama-directed horror comedy,
Jennifer’s Body (2009), written by Diablo Cody and with Amanda Seyfried, Johnny Simmons, J.K. Simmons, Amy Sedaris, and Adam Brody.
Fox jumped into the superhero genre with Warner Bros.’ Western-accented
Jonah Hex (2010), starring Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett, and Michael Shannon, but it tanked at the box office. A worse commercial result came for Fox’s next movie, writer-director Mitch Glazer’s
Passion Play (2011), starring Mickey Rourke, Bill Murray, Rhys Ifans, and Kelly Lynch, and premiering at the Toronto Film Festival.
Another poorly performing film with Fox as a co-star was writer-director Jennifer Westfeldt’s rom-com,
Friends with Kids (2011), co-starring Adam Scott, Westfeldt,
Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Chris O’Dowd, and Edward Burns, and released by Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions. Fox played herself in Sacha Baron Cohen’s political satire,
The Dictator (2012), directed by Larry Charles, with Anna Faris and Ben Kingsley, grossing double its $65-million budget for Paramount Pictures.
Megan Fox continued her run of comedies with director/writer/producer Judd Apatow in
This is 40 (2012), starring Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, John Lithgow, and Albert Brooks, grossing a solid $88 million globally for Universal Pictures. Fox took on the role of April in back-to-back movies,
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) and
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016), with castmates Will Arnett, William Fichtner, Danny Woodburn, Abby Elliott,
Alan Ritchson, and Laura Linney, but failing to earn the kind of grosses to generate a second sequel.
Fox co-starred with star-filmmaker James Franco in his financially and critically disastrous adaptation (with screenwriters Paul Felten and Ian Olds) of Steve Erickson’s novel,
Zeroville (2019), co-starring Seth Rogen,
Joey King, Danny McBride,
Craig Robinson, and Jacki Weaver. In an unusual move, Megan Fox joined Korean co-directors Kwak Kyung-taek and Kim Tae-hoon as the sole American actor in the Korean War-set
The Battle of Jangsari (2019), starring Kim Myung-min, Choi Min-ho, and Kim Sung-cheol.
Fox starred as a mercenary soldier in Africa in director/writer/producer M.J. Bassett’s little-seen
action movie for Lionsgate,
Rogue (2020). Fox starred in another little-seen thriller, from Screen Media Films, the S.K. Dale-directed
Till Death (2021), and then co-starred with Bruce Willis, Emile Hirsch, and Lukas Haas in producer-director Randall Emmett’s crime movie,
Midnight in the Switchgrass (2021), which was a critical and commercial bomb for Lionsgate.
Megan Fox co-starred next with Andy Garcia, Lucy Hale, and Oscar Isaac in director/writer/producer Brian Petsos’ black comedy,
Big Gold Brick (2022), released by Samuel Goldwyn Films/Arclight Films. Fox joined co-writer/director Tim Sutton and co-writer/star Machine Gun Kelly for the drama,
Taurus (2022), with Maddie Hasson and Scoot McNairy, which premiered in the Panorama competition of the Berlin Film Festival.
Continuing with Kelly (credited here as “Colson Baker” as a collaborating star/director/writer/producer with Mod Sun, Fox played a supporting role in the lambasted stoner comedy,
Good Mourning (2022), with GaTa, Zach Villa, Becky G, and
Dove Cameron, and with cameo roles by a host of pop culture figures (Avril Lavigne, Dennis Rodman, Tom Arnold, Pete Davidson, Danny Trejo, and Snoop Dogg). Megan Fox found herself surrounded by mega-macho dudes in the
Scott Waugh-directed sequel for Lionsgate,
Expend4bles (2023), starring
Jason Statham,
Sylvester Stallone, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Randy Couture, and Andy Garcia.
In her first voice performance for an animated film, Fox co-starred in co-writer/director Jonathon Kay’s 3-D animated fantasy,
Naya: Legend of the Golden Dolphin (date to be announced), with
Gerard Butler, Kate Winslet, and Elliot Page. Fox then starred as a rebellious fembot in the S.K. Dale-directed sci-fi thriller,
Subservience (date to be announced), with Michele Morrone, Madeline Zima, and Andrew Whipp.