A reassuring letter from Michael Bay regarding ‘Transformers: The Last Knight’
The Transformers franchise whilst being a multi-million dollar franchise, has had its up and downs (mostly downs) when it comes to critics and audience response. Pair that with the way people have been trolling certain other franchises, remakes and reboots over the last couple of years, and its not surprising that a director would maybe feel the need to reassure the fans of what is coming.
Director Michael Bay has done just that before the upcoming release of the latest installment. Here is what he had to say to the fans:
I’ve been living in this franchise for over 10 years now. For Transformers: The Last Knight, we put together a writers’ room designed to greatly expand our mythology, integrating our films in a whole new way. Every movie will interlink.
It was a huge task to expand mythology from the beginning of the world throughout history. We had a great team of writers: Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind); Art Marcum & Matt Holloway (Iron Man); Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down); Zak Penn (Ready Player One); Lindsey Beer (Barbie); Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Tomb Raider); Christina Hodson (Bumblebee); Steven DeKnight (Daredevil, Smallville); Jeff Pinkner (The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Lost); and Andrew Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari (Ant-Man).
Through the summer of 2015, they worked in a huge space on the Paramount lot, surrounded by over 10,000 concept images from the franchise’s history: the movies, cartoons, and comic books. They had a life-size Bumblebee, a Megatron head, and many other props staring them down. We pulled from everything. It was a fan’s dream room. We brought in Transformers historians from Hasbro to educate them on where Transformers has been – so that they could figure out where it can go. I can safely say that there’s never been a Transformers film with the huge visual scope and expansive mythology as this movie, The Last Knight.
It’s bittersweet for me. With every Transformers film, I’ve said it would be my last. I see the 120 million fans around the world who see these movies, the huge theme park lines to the ride and the amazing Make- A-Wish kids who visit my sets, and it somehow keeps drawing me back. I love doing these movies. This film was especially fun to shoot. But, this time might really be it. So I’m blowing this one out.
It’s a final chapter and a new beginning.
Make of this what you will, I foresee a lot of people thinking negative things like ‘Oh hell the movie must be a mess if he is coming out with this’. Personally I give a huge kudos to the man for trying to reassure people that he has this covered. Given the recent run of critic and audience panning of movies that really don’t deserve the level of hate coming out about them. I cant say I was overly looking forward to this one (Not a massive Transformers fan, old or new) but given they shot a good chunk of it near where I live, I will be giving it a watch. For now I tip my hat to you Mr Bay, this took some courage.
Just in case you forgot what this film is all about, here is the synopsis:
The Last Knight shatters the core myths of the Transformers franchise, and redefines what it means to be a hero. Humans and Transformers are at war, Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future lies buried in the secrets of the past, in the hidden history of Transformers on Earth. Saving our world falls upon the shoulders of an unlikely alliance: Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg); Bumblebee; an English Lord (Sir Anthony Hopkins); and an Oxford Professor (Laura Haddock).
There comes a moment in everyone’s life when we are called upon to make a difference. In Transformers: The Last Knight, the hunted will become heroes. Heroes will become villains. Only one world will survive: theirs, or ours.
Transformers: The Last Knight is set for a UK release on 23rd June 2017.
