Michael Bay is confirmed to be back in the director’s chair for the fourth live-action Transformers film, as part of a deal between him and Paramount to secure him for the next entry in the franchise by agreeing to fund his upcoming film Pain & Gain (which will feature Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson).
No cast or characters have been selected for the film yet, though obviously Optimus Prime and Bumblebee are expected to be major characters. Producer Lorenzo DiBonaventura says he expects it will be “an evolution” of the franchise, not a re-doing of it. Which really doesn’t explain a whole lot… if they’re not doing a reboot, there are only a few places they can go with the story; to wit, Galvatron and/or Unicron or a new story featuring either villains nobody’s heard of or that were so minor before that nobody will care (since they already kind of blew it with Shockwave.)
Of course, no characters or cast have been selected because the story hasn’t been selected yet; they’re still waiting on a script. The film already has a release date set, at June 29, 2014. This means they have almost exactly the same amount of lead time that gave us Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon (possibly less, as they might very well have started on the scripts for those before the preceding movie was released in each case.) That… isn’t encouraging, especially for those of us who were hoping for a Bay-free franchise reboot.
Morgan on Media 
I must admit I died a little when I heard the news.
Unfortunately it is a bit of an necessary evil if we want the studios to fund the better movies. Blockbusters pay the bills
🙂
It’s not that they’re doing another one that bothers me… I’m an old school Transformers fan, I like the idea of there being Transformers movies. What bothers me is that it seems we’re still not going to be getting truly good Transformers movies. 2 was dire, 3 was good only if you add in the “spectacle” factor… and it sounds like 4 will be more of same, and just as rushed on the plot, if not more.
let’s hope he thinks about the running time. 3 would have been ok at 90 mins!
I like Transformers to the extent that I keep hoping for some inkling of the greatness of the robots in disguise from my childhood. And, I don’t mind Michael Bay really. But Bay and the bots together once again was not all that welcome news.
all for the dollar and not for the fans/story is what Transformers seems to be going towards (if not already there).
He’s been… OK. Not great. Not what I was hoping for.
To be honest, “all for the dollar” kind of goes with the territory; we are talking about a franchise based entirely around a toy line, after all. Anything resembling depth or good storytelling with the original cartoons and comics was an unexpected bonus. But it’d be nice if they realized that they could do great things with the franchise and still make a buck.
I have enjoyed the movies largely due to the “awesome” factor. I know they’re not great films, but getting to see a realistic Optimus absolutely kick the scrap out of some ‘Cons is worth the ticket for me.
That said, with Movie Megatron toast and a lot of other favorites dead as well, they’re either going to have to reboot or play the Unicron card, and I don’t think even THAT would be as compelling without Megs or Screamer to kick around.
Oh yeah, the “awesome factor” has been the saving grace of these films. I think I’ve commented that the spectacle alone is worth a full star in each case. It’s the one thing that Michael Bay really excels at. And seeing realistic ‘bots is pretty cool, though I do wish they (especially the ‘Cons) were more visually distinct from each other. Optimus and Bumblebee stand out, the others… not so much.
And like you, I don’t think Unicron would be as compelling without Megatron or Starscream involved. They could conceivably go the Galvatron route without Unicron, but I don’t think they could really go the Unicron route without Galvatron to bring in the “Megs factor” — at which point, it’s going to look an awful lot like a rehash of the cartoon movie. A reboot is the logical way to go at this point… but if you’re doing a reboot, why bring back the same director?
Ahaha they are “rebooting” but bringing back the same hack director. Isn’t that some kind of Hollywood oxymoron? 😉
Well, they might be rebooting. It’s kind of unclear right now… I would have expected a reboot after the third film, and I don’t really see any way they could continue the storyline, but since they’re bringing back Bay, I don’t know…
his upcoming film Pain & Gain (which will feature Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson)
LOL, which one is going to be “Pain” and which one will be “Gain”?
Oh man, I hadn’t even thought of it like that. It does sound like that, though, doesn’t it? 😀
And my money would be on “The Rock” as “Pain” and Wahlberg as “Gain.”
You know theyre some kind of cop buddy duo or something. One of them has to turn in their badge without the other… all so they can deliver the line
“Uh huh. No Sir. No Pain… No Gain…”
LOL 😀
I have this terrible feeling that any jokes we come up with will be better than the actual film. 😀