The change of tone for the Transformers movie franchise seemed to work well for director Michael Bay as the fourth movie in the series has reportedly earned $250 million, making it the most profitable move of 2014. But all eyes are now on the next movie in the series as star Mark Wahlberg acknowledges his return in Transformers 5, set to release in 2016.
Transformers: Age of Extinction is meant to be a new direction for the franchise that has replaced stars Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox with Mark Wahlberg and Nicola Peltz who play a mechanic and daughter out to save the Autobots from the wrath of a bounty hunter.
And although the exact plot of Transformers 5 is unknown, it is expected to continue on with the setting of the fourth film instead of that of the first three films. An interview with executive producer Lorenzo de Bonaventura suggests that the fifth film will continue on Earth and not in Cybertron, as some rumors suggest.
The real question, however, is whether or not Michael Bay will return to direct the fifth film, or go in a different direction, as he has previously stated. "There's kind of a new chapter, a new direction in movies I want to make," Bay said in an interview with USA Today. "I have a lot of stories to tell. And it's about flexing new muscles."
And then again in an August interview with MTV, Bay came right out and said it. "There's a lot that's unexplored, but that's for the next director to figure out."
But Wahlberg seems to think that Bay may be returning afterall, especially after the famed director has dabbled in other movies since Transformers. In an interview with MTV, Wahlberg not only revealed that he will be returning to the film series, which is set to begin filming very soon, but that Bay may be back. "I can't speak for Mr. Bay, but something tells me we'll be on the set soon."
The Transformers film series began in 2007 when Bay worked with Paramount to release Transformers. This was followed in 2009 by Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and 2011's Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
But the fourth film, Transformers: Age of Extinction, reached new heights that certainly paid off for Bay. As described on its IMDB profile, "After the battle between the Autobots and Decepticons that leveled Chicago, humanity thinks that all alien robots are a threat. So Harold Attinger, a CIA agent, establishes a unit whose sole purpose is to hunt down all of them. But it turns out that they are aided by another alien robot who is searching for Optimus Prime. Cade Yeager, a "robotics expert", buys an old truck and upon examining it, he thinks it's a Transformer. When he powers it up, he discovers it's Optimus Prime. Later, men from the unit show up looking for Optimus. He helps Yeager and his daughter Tessa escape but are pursued by the hunter. They escape and Yeager learns from technology he took from the men that a technology magnate and defense contractor named Joshua Joyce is part of what's going on, so they go to find out what's going on."
Apart from Wahlberg's return as Cade Yeager, Peltz is also expected to return as his daughter, Tessa. And to mix things up a bit more, it's also rumored that either Shia LaBeouf or Megan Fox will appear in a cameo, but not in a starring role.
Transformers 5 is expected to launch in June of 2016, but director problems could extend that well into 2017.
