With the way Transformers 3 went, bringing in over a billion dollars theatrically and quite a lot of coin elsewhere, it’s no surprise that a fourth was in the works nor that in the end that Michael Bay would be back. With plenty of criticism heaped on the first three, and ending the third one as he did, they’re going for a new approach with the fourth installment, which includes new actors and a different set of Transformers themselves.
“We’re going to start off smaller,” says Bay. “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.”
Bay also talked about bringing in Mark Wahlberg for it and what he brings to the picture, which is certainly going to be a different dynamic than it was with Shia Lebouf.
“Mark is really excited about it and it’s a great redesign,” Bay continues. “I said that 3 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.”
While many keep hoping for this to be an overall reboot, Bay is intent on making it clear that it’s not and that it’s a fresh start while not ejecting what came before, no matter how much some fans may want it to be so.
“We keep the ‘Transformers’ the way they were,” he says. “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.”
[Source: Forbes]
