Michael Bay might direct a superhero movie after all. The blockbuster filmmaker has made a career out of blowing things up, but he has yet to broach the most popular genre around. Per The Wrap that could change, as they report that Bay is being eyed to helm a Lobo movie for Warner Bros., based on the DC Comics character. The Transformers filmmaker reportedly met with the DC Films execs to discuss the project and offered some notes that screenwriter Jason Fuchs (Pan, Wonder Woman) will incorporate into a rewrite. Once Fuchs is done, the studio will present the new script to Bay to see if he sparks to the project enough to sign on.
Warner Bros. has been developing a Lobo movie for a long, long time, predating the current DCEU. Back in 2009, Guy Ritchie was developing a PG-13 iteration of the violent antihero, then Dwayne Johnson eyed the role in 2012 when his Journey 2 the Center of the Earth director Brad Peyton was attached to direct. Fuchs boarded the project a couple of years ago, and now as Warner Bros. looks to firm up its DC plans post-Justice League disaster, securing a major filmmaker like Michael Bay to direct Lobo is apparently on their wishlist.
Bay has spent the last decade of his career directing five Transformers movies, although he did take a break to helm the refreshing Pain & Gain in 2013 and he made a detour into true-life war drama territory with 2016’s 13 Hours. However, while the Transformers franchise has always seemed bulletproof, last year’s Transformers: The Last Knight was an outright bomb in the context of the franchise as a whole. The film grossed $605 million worldwide, which is a whopping $500 million less than its previous installment.
The filmmaker has yet to settle on his next project, and odds are he’s now done with the Transformers franchise for good so he’s seemingly open and interested in new franchise properties. Lobo would be a curious fit, as the comic is very violent, bloody, and kind of all over the place, but if Warner Bros. wants its answer to Deadpool—a film and character with the sensibility of a 13-year-old boy—who better to spearhead that then Michael Bay?
