Megan Fox became a household name thanks to her role as the love interest of Shia LaBeouf in the first two Transformers films, which is why it comes as a surprisethat she has been dropped from the third.

Paramount Pictures said Fox’s option was not picked up for part three in the blockbuster Michael Bay series.

The studio, which released the first two movies about shape-shifting machines doing battle, refused to give details or say who would replace the 24-year-old actress.

Fox, notorious for making attention-grabbing comments to the media, engaged in a public spat with director Bay around the release of part two last summer. But Bay later defended her and said he looked forward to working with her on part three.

In October Michael Bay announced the third Transformers movie on his blog writing “P.S. Megan Fox, welcome back. I promise no alien robots will harm you in any way during the production of this motion picture.”

Transformers from 2007 and the 2009 sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen made more than 1.5 billion US dollars worldwide. Production is scheduled to begin this month on the third instalment, with a release date set for July 1, 2011, Paramount said.