What's in store for Michael Bay and "Transformers 4"? Well, the filmmaker did try to unsuccessfully escape from the franchise several times — he tried to make "Pain And Gain," the movie he already wrapped this summer, in between his "Transformers" films, ala Nolan and his "Batman" movies — but that never panned out.
But Bay does claim this is absolutely the last "Transformers" film he'll direct. So where does the story go from here? Well, it's been called something of a reboot in the past, with potential robot redesigns and the lead Shia LaBeouf is definitely not coming back for this fourth installment, but in a recent interview with the LA Times, Bay was insistent the fourth picture is not a do-over.
"It’s not a reboot, that’s maybe the wrong word,” Bay told the paper. “I don’t want to say reboot because then people will think we’re doing a 'Spider-Man' and starting from the beginning. We’re not. We’re taking the story that you’ve seen — the story we’ve told in three movies already — and we’re taking it in a new direction. But we’re leaving those three as the history. It all still counts. I met with the writer before I went off to do ‘Pain and Gain’ and we talked about a bunch of ideas. We let that simmer for a bit. He’s been thinking about stuff and now we’re getting back together next week to see what we’ve got and to see if it gels.”
Writen by Ehren Kruger, who penned “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” and shares co-credit on “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” Bay suggested the film could go off-world, possibly into outer-space, but doesn't want get too crazy with that concept: “That feels like the way to go, doesn’t it?" the director said. "I want to go a little off but I don’t want to go too sci-fi. I still want to keep it grounded.That’s what works in these movies, that’s what makes it accessible.”
Already set for a June 29, 2014 release date, Bay also said they're actually trying to scale down the budget instead of scaling up like most productions are wont to do for big summer blockbusters. “It’s going to be less, actually,” Bay said about the film's production budget. “Our mandate is to cut about $30 million.”
Having grossed north of $2.6 billion worldwide, despite the achievement, the filmmaker seems ok with the idea of handing over the reigns to another director with some small caveats: “Here’s the thing, it’s tough to find someone who’s done these kind of movies and to have the complication of creating the new stuff that needs to be in this movie – not just characters but a new type of action, I hope – and that’s a lot for someone new to bite off. And so after this one I will leave it in the best hands possible. That’s the plan.”
