Transformers 5 May Not Be Directed by Michael Bay

<p>After directing four blockbuster <em><strong>Transformers<&sol;strong><&sol;em> movies&comma; Michael Bay may be turning the franchise over to a new director&period; The 49-year-old director apparently wants to move on to direct other projects while still producing the wealth of content he is now &lpar;<em><strong>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles<&sol;strong><&sol;em>&rpar;&period; In an interview with USA Today&comma; Bay talked about his desire for something new&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote><p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;There’s kind of a new chapter&comma; a new direction in movies I want to make&comma;” says Bay&comma; who is eyeing a passion project&comma; a documentary on elephant poaching&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;I have a lot of stories to tell&period; And it’s about flexing new muscles&period;”<&sol;p><&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<p>Perhaps Bay wants to hang up his usual toys and trademarks for action movies and create something much different in the second half of his life&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m not suggesting he&&num;8217&semi;ll pull a complete 180 on his style&comma; but maybe he wants to do some much more meaningful films in addition to ones that are big&comma; dumb and fun&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>It&&num;8217&semi;s not like this hasn&&num;8217&semi;t been considered a possibility by the producers either&period; Transformers producer Lorenzo diBonaventura did discuss this earlier in an interview with Slashfilm about the future of the franchise&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote><p>I wouldn’t wanna be &lbrack;the filmmaker who tapes over&rsqb;&comma; but there will be somebody&period; I think the opportunity’s too great&period; My suspicion is&comma; without having thought really about it at all&comma; cause I really want Michael to return&comma; I think Michael’s found the right mix for this franchise&period; So the sense of humor&comma; obviously the scale&period; The invention that’s going on&comma; all these things he really likes and clearly has found a way to continue to top himself&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>But&comma; you know&comma; I guess if you had to think about who would be the next one&comma; my guess is it would be somebody who probably was a kid who watched the show as a kid because then they’ll have a fundamental understanding of the D&period;N&period;A&period; in a way&period; And are able to bring that thing that you have when you’ve grown up with it&period; It sinks into you in a different way&period;<&sol;p><&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<p>Whoever takes over is going to have a lot of pressure given that the <em><strong>Transformers<&sol;strong><&sol;em> franchise has made nearly <strong>&dollar;4 billion worldwide<&sol;strong> with each film being a smash hit at the box office summer after summer&period; As you can imagine&comma; Lorenzo is most-likely hoping that Bay will return for the next installment&period; But if not&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;m sure that Bay will choose a suitable replacement &lpar;at the very least for the purposes of keeping the robotic gravy train chugging&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Source&colon; <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;usatoday&period;com&sol;story&sol;life&sol;movies&sol;2014&sol;08&sol;07&sol;michael-bay-transformers-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles&sol;13295115&sol;&quest;AID&equals;10709313&amp&semi;PID&equals;6150628&amp&semi;SID&equals;vx81ccjq&fjlig;aa">USA Today<&sol;a>&comma; <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;slashfilm&period;com&sol;lorenzo-di-bonaventura-transformers-4-producer&sol;">Slashfilm<&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;