After the third Transformers film,”Dark of the Moon,” hit theaters in June 2011, Michael Bay seemed adamant about his decision to make it his last installment in the Transformers franchise. The legacy of the wildly successful movies from Paramount was to be carried on by another director. As talk of the fourth film was underway, fans couldn’t imagine it without Bay directing. After all, what would Transformers be without Michael Bay?
The fans got their wish when Michael Bay officially announced that he would, in fact, return to direct the fourth Transformers movie which is set to hit screens in the summer of 2014. In an interview with the Huffington Post, Bay explained that he wasn’t ready to let go of the reigns on the films and wanted to set the direction for the films to go.
“I thought I was done,” he told Mike Ryan of the Huffington Post. “Then the ride came out [at Universal Studios, Hollywood] and the two-and-a-half-hour lines. And then you’re thinking, oh my God, someone’s going to take this over. And you start doing a lot of soul-searching. Like, OK, I’m about to do a little movie, “Pain & Gain” … and the studio says they want to restart the franchise. And someone could come in here and screw it up, you know?”
Sine his completion of the last Transformers film, Bay has been immersed in a dark comedy, “Pain and Gain,” starring Dwayne Johnson and Mark Wahlberg. The film takes a much different approach than Bay’s usual style and had only a $20 million budget. According to FilmSchoolRejects.com, the story is based on a 1999 news article in the Miami Herald about two bodybuilders involved in extortion and kidnapping crimes. The film is due in theaters April 2013.
After he finished the film, Bay realized he needed to finish this last (at least for him) Transformers film— not as a complete “reboot” but with different elements and characters. The film may take place somewhat in the future and none of the human characters will be in the fourth installment. Shia LaBeouf confirmed at the end of the third Transformers that he was not returning for anymore of the franchise’s films.
Although the humans will be completely different and there will be a new batch of transforming robots to love, you can still count on Optimus Prime to star in the next movie. Michael Bay told Huffington Post, Peter Cullen, he would definitely be coming back and he couldn’t imagine any one else to provide the voice of the most famed Transformer.
“So I’m thinking that if I do this last one, we set it on a new footing, we change a lot of things — but we keep the history of the three in place,” Bay was quoted in the Huffington Post. “But we broaden it so it can be set up and be carried on — it would have a better chance for survival.”
Bay discussed in the interview that, when it came down to it, he loves the franchise and just couldn’t give up on it and hand it over to someone else just yet.
“It was just one of those things,” he told Ryan. “It’s like, when you look what’s going on in the film business with the franchise frenzy right now, why is Cameron doing two more ‘Avatar’ movies? Why is Peter Jackson doing three more ‘Hobbit’ movies that are in the same world as ‘Lord of the Rings’? When you have a franchise, it’s very hard to give it up.”
By Nelson Lafever
Nelson graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2002 with a BA in journalism and now focuses his talents on the technology sector.
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