Paramount Announces 3 New 'Transformers' Movies
They'll be released annually until 2019 and possibly beyond.
Challenge anyone who is a remotely competent movie fan to explain the plot of any of the Transformers sequels in a concise manner and it’s a near-certainty that they’d be unable to do it. And yet here we are, four movies in and over a billion dollars later, we have a full blown Transformers franchise that shows no sign of stopping. Skeptics better braces themselves because Paramount Pictures just announced the release dates for three new Transformers movies to further complicate the nonsense adventures of Optimus Prime and his merry band of shape-shifting robots.
The studio announced Transformers 5 will open on June 23, 2017, while Transformers 6 will be released on June 8, 2018, followed by Transformers 7 on June 28, 2019. The move is undoubtedly to align the Transformers property with other multi-functional franchise heavy hitters like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the unstoppable series of new Star Wars movies we’ll get every year.
The announcement shouldn’t be anything new, as in early 2015 writer Akiva Goldsman was put in charge of spearheading the effort to come up with a story arc for the new Transformers trilogy, as well as come up with potential spinoffs that could keep the box office receipts ringing and perpetuate new toy lines to correspond with whatever they think up next. Because, after all, it’s all about the spin-off these days.
Director Michael Bay announced last month in Rolling Stone that he’d direct Transformers 5, but it would be his last. Transformers 6 would be the first movie in the franchise not helmed by Bay’s larger-than-life personality. “I’m doing Transformers … 5, is it?,” Bay said half-jokingly. “It’s fun to do a movie that 100 million people will see,” he continued. “This is the last one. I have to pass the reins to someone else.”
God help whoever picks up those reins. And God help us all. More Transformers movies are coming.
