Fox expands her nerd cred further by taking on the role of April O'Neil in Bay's TMNT reboot

"Transformers" alum Megan Fox will reunite with Michael Bay, starring as April O'Neil in the producer's controversial "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" reboot. "TMNT: we are bringing Megan Fox back into the family!" Bay wrote on his blog.

The announcement comes as a surprise in the wake of their rather public falling out following 2009's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen." (Fox, who didn't return for "Dark of the Moon," compared Bay to Napoleon and Hitler; he later dismissed her criticism, saying, "I'm sorry, Megan. I'm sorry I made you work twelve hours. I'm sorry that I'm making you show up on time. Movies are not always warm and fuzzy.") According to The Hollywood Reporter, the two are said to have reconciled during a series of recent meetings, with director Jonathan Liebesman ("Wrath of the Titans," "Battle: Los Angeles") sealing the deal by showing the actress storyboards.

Winning over fans won't be nearly as easy, however: The CG/live-action hybrid film has already been ridiculed for everything from the changes to the characters' comic-book origins (the Turtles are now aliens) to the shortened title ("Ninja Turtles," as they're neither mutants nor teenagers). While Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman has endorsed the reboot (he has consulted with Liebesman), his one-time collaborator Peter Laird isn't so convinced.

But the problems apparently didn't end there, as Paramount Pictures shut down production in June, pushing the release date from December 2013 to May 2014. That delay came to an end last month, when news broke that production would start back up in April in New York City.

The movie last week reportedly began testing actors, most relative unknowns, for the motion-capture roles of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael.