A few months ago, Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg were in talks with Hasbro for more Transformers movies. Then Michael Bay took to the forums and announced that he was not in talks to direct the sequel (or, according to some reports, sequels). Now, today, on his official site, Michael Bay confirmed that he will be directing the fourth installment of the ‘Transformers’ series, and it will be ready to be released on June 29, 2014. The full statement reads:
“There has been a lot of speculation about what I’m going to do next and when or if I will do another Transformers. So let me set the record straight. I have just concluded a deal with Paramount to do two movies, but it won’t be two Transformers. I will first do ‘Pain & Gain’ with Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. Then I will do the next Transformers for release on June 29, 2014.
-Michael Bay”
It’s unusual for monumental news such as this to drop so late in the day, but Lorenzo di Bonaventura spilled the beans a day early when he was in front of a camera at the New York Toy Fair. According to Deadline, Paramount and Bay are furious at the producer. In the interview with MTV, di Bonaventura called the new movie a reboot hybrid, meaning that it will be in the same continuity as the previous three films, but will have very few, if any of the original cast returning. The producer said that they’re still in the process of figuring it all out, so it’s still too early to tell.
I’m sure that Lorenzo will be punished in some way by the studio, but can you blame the guy for being so excited? Even though the series went sour for their third installment, Transformers is a huge deal. Maybe this reboot hybrid is exactly what the franchise needs to get mediocre again.
Take a look at the interview that might have cost Lorenzo di Bonaventura his job:
