Even Michael Bay admits that yes, he should have stopped making “Transformers” movies.
The blockbuster filmmaker was hand selected by producer Steven Spielberg to bring the Hasbro toy line to life with 2007’s “Transformers,” and then he ended up directing four additional sequels. The franchise hit a nadir with 2017’s “Transformers: The Last Knight,” which grossed $500 million less than the previous installment (2014’s “Age of Extinction”) and effectively put the series on ice.
“I made too many of them,” Bay admitted to Unilad UK in a recent interview. “Steven Spielberg said, ‘Just stop at three.’ And I said I’d stop. The studio begged me to do a fourth, and then that made a billion, too. And then I said I’m gonna stop here. And they begged me again. I should have stopped. [But] they were fun to do.”
Bay peppered in other projects in between “Transformers” movies like 2013’s dark comedy “Pain & Gain” and 2016’s war film “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi.”
Paramount Pictures tried a spinoff route with the “Transformers” franchise with 2018’s prequel “Bumblebee,” which starred Hailee Steinfeld and was made on a smaller scale. That film grossed $468 million worldwide.
Currently the franchise is being somewhat rebooted with “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” which stars Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback and is directed by Steven Caple Jr. (“Creed II”). The film is another prequel, this time set in 1994 Brooklyn, and is due for release in June 2023.
Bay, meanwhile, most recently directed the Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II-led actioner “Ambulance” which opens in theaters this weekend. After “The Last Knight,” he made his first Netflix movie with 2019’s “6 Underground.”
