When Michael Bay stated his intention to step away from the Transformers franchise after the third installment, many were interested to see what filmmaker would tackle next.  After helming his smaller scale passion project Pain & Gain, however, the director did an about-face and decided he would return to the Transformers world one more time in order to set up a sort of franchise reboot.  The result is the Mark Wahlberg-fronted Transformers: Age of Extinction, and with the film slated to open in theaters this summer, attention now turns to Bay’s next film—that is unless he just decides to keep making Transformers movies forever.

Paramount Pictures has now picked up an untitled adventure pitch for Bay to produce, but the project is also being developed as potential directing vehicle for the filmmaker, making this a contender for Bay’s post-Transformers project.  Hit the jump for more.

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Per Heat Vision, Paramount has tapped Tom Wheeler (Puss in Boots) and Robbie Thompson (CW’s Supernatural) to write the script for this new untitled project, which is described as “a real science adventure thriller with an undersea component.”  Further plot details are being kept under wraps, but one can imagine the kind of explosions and destruction Bay could create in an underwater setting.

Wheeler created NBC’s short-lived superhero series The Cape, for which Thompson was also a writer.  Additionally, Wheeler penned DreamWorks Animation’s B.O.O.: Bureau of Otherworldly Operations, which is slated for release on June 5, 2015.

There’s no guarantee that Bay will direct this underwater project and he’ll likely see how the script comes together before making a final decision, but it’s definitely an interesting project.  Bay is also developing a World War II thriller called Sabotage for Paramount as another potential directorial project, so that one is a possibility for his post-Age of Extinction film as well.  The Transformers sequel opens in theaters this June, so we should have a better idea of Bay’s slate sometime this summer.