During an interview with Forbes to promote the upcoming release of the bodybuilding crime caper Pain & Gain, director Michael Bay has taken a moment to touch upon his plans to shake up the Transformers series for the as-yet-untitled fourth instalment.Having previously stated his intention to revamp the blockbuster franchise and bring in an entirely new human cast - which so far includes his Pain & Gain star Mark Wahlberg (Ted) and up-and-coming actor Jack Reynor (Dollhouse) - Bay has now revealed that the Autobots and Decepticons will be getting a brand new look for Transformers 4:
"We’re going to start off smaller. 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. Mark is really excited about it and it’s a great redesign. I said that [Transformers: Dark of the Moon] was going to be my last one. Paramount was letting me do Pain & Gain and the Transformersride 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."
However, while the Transformers will be getting a redesign for the forthcoming sequel, Bay stressed that the fourth movie will be set in the same universe as the first three movies, as opposed to being a full reboot of the series: "No, that’s wrong. We keep the Transformers the way they were, 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."
The Untitled Transformers Sequel is currently scheduled for release on June 27th, 2014, while Pain & Gain hits North American cinemas on April 26th and opens in the UK on May 3rd.