Michael Bay thinks the do-not-work order on 'Songbird' was caused by a ''money thing''.

The 55-year-old director is producing the upcoming movie - which is set two years in the future when the coronavirus pandemic is still present - but it was put in doubt after the SAG-AFTRA union ordered its members to avoid the project.

Michael - whose movie has now been given the green light - told The Hollywood Reporter: ''We worked out the safety issues months ago, and we resolved (the latest issue with the unions) over the weekend.

''I don't even think it was a safety issue. It was a money thing.''

The project - which features stars such as Demi Moore and Paul Walter Hauser - will become the first blockbuster filmed in Los Angeles since the virus brought the industry to a halt.

And Michael hinted there is a ''special sauce'' to make sure the production is shot safely.

The 'Transformers' director said: ''We are literally going to be the first film to shoot in LA. And we have a kind of special sauce with how we're doing it where there's zero contact.''

Jessica Lacy, who is selling the flick for ICM Studios, added that the Adam Mason-helmed movie is both ''timely and terrifying''.

She said: ''It is very much actors on their own - nobody is interacting quite in the same manner in which a normal production would function.

''It's obviously timely and also terrifying.''