Just when you thought the Autobots might finally get some peace and quiet, boom, there’s a loud explosion revealing that the Bayhem is back. According to Matt Belloni at Puck, we can expect the return of Michael Bay to the Transformers franchise as he’s already developing a new live-action film.
After years of wheel-spinning, it looks like Paramount is circling the wagons and betting on Bayhem to reignite the franchise… again. The director, who kicked off the billion-dollar robot wars in 2007, is reportedly working from a script by Jordan VanDina, the writer behind Cocaine Bear and The Binge.
But why now?
Since Michael Bay wrapped Transformers: The Last Knight in 2017, a film that made half the money of its predecessor and probably cost twice as much, Paramount has tried everything to keep the franchise alive without Bay’s signature chaos. Bumblebee (2018) gave us heart and Hailee Steinfeld, and fans responded. It made $400 million on a lean $135 million budget. Critically, it was the best of the bunch. But then the studio forgot what made it work and gave us Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023), which also made around $400 million… after spending nearly double.
And let’s not forget Transformers One, the animated origin story from 2024 that brought in Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, and Keegan-Michael Key. It was well-received by longtime fans, but the box office said otherwise. It made just $129 million.
So, now we’re back to where it all began: Michael Bay’s big-budget explosions, slow-motion shots of soldiers diving away from fireballs, and Optimus Prime monologuing like Shakespeare in a scrapyard. To be fair, Bay is also the guy who helped Dark of the Moon and Age of Extinction both cross the $1 billion mark globally. Those are figures that are hard to ignore.
There’s still no production start date, and technically, the studio has until 2029 to kick off something new or risk losing the rights back to Hasbro. But that G.I. Joe crossover they teased is probably dead now.
So if Bay is back, can we expect Megan Fox and Shia Lebouff too? Probably not the latter, but we could see Fox fighting for Cybertron again.
Are you ready for Bayhem 2.0?
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