10 Directors Who Could Take Over Transformers From Michael Bay
If Bay really is done with the Autobots, who could redefine the franchise in his absence?
So Michael Bay has said that Transformers: The Last Knight is going to be the last movie he directs in the franchise. Then again, he said the exact same thing whilst making Age of Extinction... and whilst making Dark of the Moon. So really, for all we know, Bay could end up directing Transformers 6 if Paramount ends up enticing him with more cash and the promise to fund one of his passion projects again.
But to take him at his word for a moment, let's just imagine what that looks like: a Transformers movie not directed by Michael Bay.
At the very least, the upcoming Bumblebee spin-off won't be in Bay's hands (it's being helmed by Kubo and the Two Strings' Travis Knight), but to see a main entry in the franchise finally in the hands of someone else is an exciting prospect. After five films of basically the same thing over and over again, maybe a new voice can bring something fresh to the property.
Even after so many sequels, the Transformers brand has not been exploited to its full potential. Bay may have squeezed every last ounce he can out of it, but rarely did he ever use the property to its full potential. There is serious potential for a genuinely good blockbuster to be made out of Transformers, and the following directors are exactly the right talent who can revitalize the series for a new generation.
10. Dan Trachtenberg
Dan Trachtenberg is a relatively new face on the movie scene, but in that small amount of time he's shown he has exactly the right kind of talent to direct a large-scale science fiction film.
Most will have first come to know Trachtenberg for his fan film Portal: No Escape, which was an effective demonstration for how the mechanics of Portal could be translated to film but also of Trachtenberg's directorial skill. He soon followed that up by directing 10 Cloverfield Lane, which showcased his talent for small-scale sci-fi but with a climax that promised he could deliver large-scale too, and most recently he helmed the "Playtest" episode of the third season of Black Mirror.
All of Trachtenberg's work has shown an affinity for speculative sci-fi, and to see an element of that brought to a series lacking in that kind of depth like Transformers would be an interesting prospect.
It would be a test for the director to enlargen the scale of his vision and make something as consistently grand as the third act of 10 Cloverfield Lane, but equally he could bring something more scaled-down and streamlined than the overblown bombast Bay has kept the franchise stuck in.
However he would decide to handle it, a pair of fresh eyes like Trachtenberg would certainly bring something different to the table.