Though Michael Bay was initially reticent to commit to making a fourth installment of his hugely successful Transformers franchise, the money in these things is just too good, so it was really only a matter of time before he relented and agreed to sign on for a fourth. And though the news of another Bay-directed Transformers movie is going to be enough to earn groans from a lot of film fans, there have been some promising indications that a fourth film could be the best yet, even with the same director in place.
From the very beginning, Transformers 4 has been thought of as a retooling of the franchise. Gone would be the north of $200m budgets and focus on Shia LaBeouf’s goofy Sam character and his ridiculously annoying family, and in their place would be a more traditional action plot starring a more traditional action actor. Heck, at one point it was even rumored that the studio was going after Jason Statham to star. Say that Bay made a Transformers movie without a focus on all of that family-friendly humor, with a budget that forced him to rely a little less on technical wizardry and a little more on his ingenuity…that could result in a watchable movie, right? The final battle of Transformers 3 was a lot of fun to watch, what if that were the whole movie?
Well, Twitch has word that this dream may be one step closer to becoming a reality. Apparently Bay and his people have reached out to Mark Wahlberg to come on board and be the star of this new film, and seeing as the two just worked together on the low budget bodybuilding movie Pain and Gain, it’s pretty believable that Wahlberg could bite. This would give the film the proven action star it needs to move forward with a less comedic, less lame approach.
Of course, it should be noted that Twitch’s sources have also stated that, while the focus of this fourth film would be on the adult character Wahlberg is being asked to play, it would also introduce his teenage child, who would be the star of any future Transformers films going forward. Sure, that sounds awful, but maybe – for this one brief installment – we could actually get a Transformers movie that isn’t embarrassing, all of the way through. To dare to dream.