It's hard to remember a time before the Transformers franchise, when Michael Bay was not directing movies about giant alien robots and their human allies. In fact, prior to bringing the popular toy line to the big screen - and 'transforming' it into a multibillion dollar enterprise - Bay played in a number of different genres, including science fiction, historical drama, action-adventure, and suspense thriller.

That said, one concept Bay has yet to explore - surprisingly - in any of his films is time travel. But seeing as he may pass on directing the fifth Transformers, it looks like that could finally change.

According to The Wrap, Michael Bay is attached to direct an adaptation of Wesley Chu's yet-to-be-released sci-fi novel Time Salvager. Fellow Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, along with Mark Vahradian, will produce the high-concept film for Paramount.

Set in a future where the human race has been forced to abandon a dying Earth and colonize outer space, the story follows a convicted criminal who is chosen to travel back in time to save humanity from inevitable extinction. Of course, the mission goes horribly wrong when - you guessed it - the character alters history by saving a woman doomed to die. When he brings her back to the future, they both become fugitives marked for death.

With a producing credit on the recent time travel adventure Project Almanac, Bay is not a complete stranger to experimenting with the space-time continuum - nor is he a stranger to films that recruit convicts for special missions (Armageddon, The Rock). And considering the post-apocalyptic premise, which will most likely require heavy special effects and plenty of green screen scenes, Bay can also lend his experience with CGI-heavy, high concept blockbusters to the adaption.

However, the experience some would say that Bay is lacking - and that time travel flicks like Looper and Terminator desperately rely on for coherence - relates to a little thing called plot.

It's no secret the Transformers films succeed for their style rather than substance - something the director is not ashamed of, especially with the payday that comes with it - but with a narrative device as problematic and fragile as time travel, style is hardly enough to prevent the complex storyline from folding in on itself. With that in mind, there's hope Bay will have a strong enough script to work with, as well as input from the author, to prevent any sort of temporal or narrative disaster.

What do you think, Screen Rant readers? Are you excited to see Bay dabble in time travel? Let us know in the comments.

The novel, Time Salvager, hits bookstores on July 7. Michael Bay is currently directing the Benghazi siege movie 13 Hours for Paramount.

Source: The Wrap