Michael Bay Returns To Direct Transformers 4 For June 29th 2014

As we told you he would, Michael Bay has agreed to direct "Transformers 4" and "Transformers 5". His dilly-dallying last year over a return to the cinematic franchise he started was simply to entice Paramount to add a few more million to his paycheck and obviously it worked. All parties wanted to do the deal because everyone involved are printing their own money with the saga, the delay was due to them all wanting the best financial package they could get. Paramount and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura announced yesterday that "Transformers 4" will be released June 29th, 2014 - smack right in the middle of a summer they currently have little competition against right now. There is a chance the fifth movie could be shot back-to-back with the fourth and we will see "Transformers 5" possibly as easily as summer 2015. In fact that seems most likely. Bay updated his official blog yesterday; "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." The big question now is what direction does the franchise move into? Shia LaBeouf has now secured his financial future for the rest of his life from the trilogy to date (and the Indiana Jones 4 and eventually Indiana Jones 5 money) that he can afford to do other things now that he is bored with the series and previously producer Bonaventura had hinted that the franchise could hit the reboot button now LaBeouf has moved on... "I think we really are going to do a reboot there. what that's going to be, we don't even know yet€ We've got to get a story first. It's a hybrid because there's still continuity going on, and there will be a lot of new cast. Whether there's anybody from the first cast, we don't even know yet," he said. "But it's going to be a whole new story. But the characters that would certainly come along would be Optimus and Bumblebee, I'm sure." Though I doubt when he says 'reboot' he refers to a "Transformers Begins" or "Transformers Year One" film because that most likely isn't the case. What he probably means is something like "The Bourne Legacy"... same universe, a true continuation of previous events, but with new characters/actors. We had heard Jason Statham could be that leading man, with his real life girlfriend and already Transformers star Rosie Huntington-Whiteley beside him in what would be a more adult based action franchise (with the idea that the teenage Transformer audience the original was intended for have now grown up to twenty-something adults) and you can't rule out Bay using his Pain & Gain stars Mark Wahlberg or Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson (or both) who I imagine will be two actors whispering in the ear of Bay to give them the leading part in the franchise. Update" In doing a bit more research Bonavenutra has suggested to think 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation" and its relationship to the original for the new direction of the Transformers series, so my suspicions were correct. Next step for Paramount is for a script to be hashed out. We imagine Transformers: Dark of the Moon writer Ehren Kruger will be on duties again. Meanwhile Bay shoots Pain & Gain in April. Bay has long wanted to make something smaller than the films we has been making for the past eight years, an explosions movie without robots if you will but high on his Bad Boys-esque machismo and that's what Pain & Gain is in essence, a modest crime actioner that will at least be more inoffensive than giant robot battle porn that the Transformers movies have become.