Transformers 4’s Michael Bay On The Franchise’s Redesign
This article is more than 2 years old
There is a lot still unknown about Michael Bay’s next movie, Transformers 4, but one thing’s for sure: it’s going to be something completely different from the first three films in the series. Although Bay was reluctant to return to the Transformers universe so soon, he’s embracing the opportunity and wants to completely “redesign” the franchise.
In an interview with Forbes Magazine, Michael Bay opened up about the challenges in front of him with Transformers 4. After Paramount gave him the green light to direct the upcoming Pain & Gain, featuring Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Bay wanted to give the Transformers series a proper send-off for a new generation of directors. Bay says:
We’re going to start off smaller. There’s a brand new cast. To freshen the franchise, we’ve redesigned everything from top to bottom. The history of the first three movies is still there, we start four years later and there’s a reason why we’re meeting a new cast. Mark [Wahlberg] is really excited about it and it’s a great redesign. I said that 3 [which grossed $1.1 billion] was going to be my last one. Paramount was letting me do Pain & Gain and the Transformers ride was opening at Universal and it was bittersweet to think of passing it off. I wanted to set it up on a really sure footing and to bring someone else in on that, it would have been overwhelming.
It’s been kind of unclear whether or not Transformers 4 was a reboot or just a sequel that moves the franchise in a new direction. Bay’s comments here are the most straightforward we’ve heard so far. Transformers 4 will, in fact, take place four years after Transformers: Dark of the Moon and will feature a new cast of characters, new Transformers, and a new storyline. Bay also directly addresses Mark Wahlberg’s earlier statement that Transformers 4 would be an outright reboot.
No, that’s wrong. We keep the Transformers the way they were, it’s just four years later. There’s a reason the Transformers are redesigned. We’re trying to broaden the franchise and give it more places to go.
Transformers 4 will feature actors Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Brenton Thwaites, and Jack Reynor. Transformers 4 will hit theaters everywhere on June 29, 2014, in IMAX 3D.
