Michael Bay’s New Transformers Movie Plans Will Finally Answer A Divisive 3-Year-Old Debate

Published Oct 10, 2026, 12:20 PM EDT

Zoë Miskelly is an editor and second in command for Screen Rant's Movies team, having covered the entertainment industry for almost 10 years now. Zoë's love of superheroes and all things Marvel & DC started out in childhood, and has blossomed into a career getting to talk about some of the biggest and best movies and shows of all time, having previously focused on comics while working at WhatCulture.

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The current plans for Michael Bay to direct another Transformers movie are set up to answer a question about one of the series' most divisive installments several years after its release and reception. The Transformers movies have been a major film franchise in their own right for well over a decade now, with the assorted selection of live-action movies following the Autobots and Decepticons having an impressive financial history that includes two $1 billion hits, thanks to the results of 2011's Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and 2014's Transformers: Age of Extinction.

This level of success was arguably paved by director Michael Bay's earlier efforts in the franchise making it a blockbuster series that people would flock to the cinema to see, though Bay's current last Transformers film - the fittingly named Transformers: The Last Night - was released almost 10 years ago now.

The franchise has seen some major hits and more divisive releases since then, which have set up a landscape that makes the news that Michael Bay is looking at returning to craft more in this movie world once more a seriously promising sounding prospect. It's also one that is set to answer one lasting question regarding who was right about the series' last installment, given the mixed reception it received.

Michael Bay's Next Transformers Movie Can Confirm Who Was Right About Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts

The news that Michael Bay is in talks to direct another installment in the Transformers movie series is particularly interesting given how the last release in the live-action series was received.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was a decidedly well-received installment with fans and broader cinemagoers who went to see it, but received a notably more negative reception from critics, as can be evidenced still via its Rotten Tomatoes scores, which have an impressive 91% Popcornmeter score from general audiences, compared to a far more negative 51% Tomatometer score from critics.

As such, it will be even more interesting to see how the next Transformers movie in this line of sorts approaches the franchise, since this will effectively confirm whether Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was an installment that crafted fertile narrative ground that Bay directly draws from to take the franchise forward, or whether the next chapter tries to ignore Rise of the Beasts, and in doing so validates criticisms about the direction the film took the franchise in.

The Wait For Our Next Live-Action Transformers Movie Means Its Perspective On The Franchise Is Even More Important

While the animated Transformers: One gained some solid critical reception in 2024, it's been 3 years since we last saw a new live-action Transformers film grace the big screen, since 2023's Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was the last movie to do so.

Naturally, this means the prospect of Michael Bay returning to the Transformers series that had its best installments under his guidance seems to hold other unique potential too. The lasting fame of the franchise shows there's definitely potential for further expansion on the big screen and in the live-action format, even if more recent chapters of this series haven't universally blown audiences away.

Indeed, the gap between Rise of the Beasts and any prospective future live-action films gives a follow-up Transformers movie a viable excuse to pave its own path and not necessarily follow on so directly from what came before. This should allow a future release to serve as a course correction point where this may be warranted, and further suggests such a film can show whether Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was right for the franchise or not based on what happens next.