With production wrapped on Michael Bay’s $20 million passion project, the dark comedy Pain and Gain, the director is now turning more of his attention to his fourth—and “final”—film in the Transformers franchise.  We know that Transformers 4 won’t feature any of the human cast from the previous three films, there will be redesigns for some of the robots, it’s set for release in the summer of 2014, and it’s been described as a reboot of sorts.  Now that he’s moved on to the post-production phase of Pain and Gain, Bay recently talked a bit about where Transformers 4 will go storywise and asserted that the film is not a reboot.  Hit the jump to see what he had to say.michael-bay-transformers-4-imageBay addressed just exactly how Transformers 4 will be connected to the other three films in an interview with Hero Complex, saying that “reboot” isn’t an entirely accurate description:

“It’s not a reboot, that’s maybe the wrong word. I don’t want to say reboot because then people will think we’re doing a Spider-Man and starting from the beginning. We’re not. We’re taking the story that you’ve seen — the story we’ve told in three movies already — and we’re taking it in a new direction. But we’re leaving those three as the history. It all still counts. I met with the writer before I went off to do Pain and Gain and we talked about a bunch of ideas. We let that simmer for a bit. He’s been thinking about stuff and now we’re getting back together next week to see what we’ve got and to see if it gels.”

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We previously reported that Ehren Kruger, who co-wrote Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and took sole credit on Transformers: Dark of the Moon, would be writing Transformers 4 so one assumes that he's the writer Bay is talking about.  When asked if the film's story could involve a departure from Earth, Bay seemed to be keen on spending more time in space:

“I think so, yeah, a little. That feels like the way to go, doesn’t it? I want to go a little off but I don’t want to go too sci-fi. I still want to keep it grounded. That’s what works in these movies, that’s what makes it accessible.”

Though the story of Transformers 4 might journey into space, Bay says the budget for the film will actually be less than the first three.  “Our mandate is to cut about $30 million,” Bay says.  That number seems small when talking about a movie that’s essentially wall-to-wall explosions (the last Transformers was budgeted at a reported $195 million), but comparatively that cut is more than the entire budget for Bay’s recently completed film.

Hopefully we’ll hear some casting or firm plot information soon as Bay puts the finishing touches on Pain and Gain and starts prepping the Transformers 4 shoot. Though Bay claims this is his last go-around with his favorite robots, he said the same thing during production of Dark of the Moon.  His supposed goal with 4 is to “set up the series for the next guy,” but who knows if he’ll actually walk away after this next film.  What we do know for sure is that Transformers 4 is slated to hit theaters on June 27th, 2014, and if the box office of the other films is any indication then Transformers 5 is all but guaranteed.

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