Okay. I was wrong.
(hangs head in shame)

Mark your calendars for September 24, when I’ll start live blogging the vertically-integrated studio mogul’s debut as a dancing reality TV star, right here on SpoutBlog.

File this under wild speculation, but I’m hearing rumors that Paramount might be getting ready to announce a deal to make Michael Bay’s Transformers available on Comcast On-Demand within days of its July 3 theatrical debut.

If this is true, it would be a huge deal. Up until this point, Mark Cuban’s Magnolia has been the only studio to really embrace simultaneous distribution, and they haven’t exactly had tons of success with it, even with films by name brand directors like Hal Hartley and Steven Soderbergh. For a major studio to go this route with what is probably *the* mainstream must-see film of the summer? It would certainly be a gamble, but one could argue that Transformers is the perfect window-smashing test case: it’s such an event movie that anyone who had already planned to see it on the big screen probably couldn’t be deterred, and meanwhile the Comcast offering will reach an audience of home theater addicts that would be otherwise untappable for another six months.

So what are the odds that this could actually happen? The source of the rumor seems to be this post on the tech blog UberPulse, which doesn’t mention Comcast by name and quotes a price ($49) that’s a bit lower than what I’ve heard. On the one hand, it’s hard to believe that a less-than top-tier tech blog would be able to break news on the goings on inside a major studio like Paramount. On the other hand, a blog like UberPulse *could* have a contact inside the cable company.

Paramount could also be waiting to see how Transformers plays to crowds at the Los Angeles Film Festival next week before making an announcement. If buzz is of the “I want to see this movie again and again” variety, smashing the window may not actually hurt them.

Still, it’s hard to believe that something like this could be in the works so close to the film’s release date. If this is really happening, it’s probably been in the works for a long while, in which case, it’s odd no one has heard about it.

Again, this is just a rumor at this point. I’ll update this post if and when more details come in.