After Transformers: The Last Knight opens in theaters next summer, Paramount Pictures plans to move to an annualized release schedule for the Hasbro toy based movie franchise. The first of these is 2018's Bumblebee spinoff, followed by the untitled Transformers 6 in 2019, and after that it's anyone's guess.

Paramount knows though. It's all part of a long-term plan to implement a Marvel-style shared cinematic universe to take advantage of a series that's only been growing in popularity and international appeal. And they're doing this with a massive writers room of top Hollywood talent who were assembled to pitch ideas of vastly expanding the universe. There was even an R-rated Transformers movie pitched to Michael Bay.

It was this writers room and their ideas that convinced Michael Bay to helm Transformers: The Last Knight - the fifth installment of the franchise he started a decade ago. Since this movie - which Bay says will be his "last" (again) - also apparently serves as an entry point for new viewers while also being the first in what's going to be an annual mega franchise, will it setup 2018's Bumblebee and other spinoffs that are in the works?

While visiting the set of Transformers: The Last Knight this summer, franchise producer Lornezo di Bonaventura answered this very question, hinting that two or three of the planned movies will directly connect to Transformers 5.

 

"Sometimes is the answer. It's not always, because I think then it feels like you're really trying to widget it all together, and it becomes a little too neat. But I think - I don't think, I know - some of the things will have a very direct relationship. You'll see some things in here that are laying a pipe. You won't necessarily know that it's laying a pipe for another movie, but it's there.

So there's probably, in a really meaningful way, two or three things in this movie that really have a meaningful aspect in terms of it, and then there's a bunch of little things. But we're not making this movie to setup the other movies. That's what I'm trying to say. If you get too carried away with that, you stop thinking about this movie.

And this movie, the two lines of mythology in a sense give you freedom to go a lot of different places later on that may or may not directly relate to another movie, but it's opening up the universe in a way that I think, in that way it's probably the most provocative, in terms of the movie. It's opening a really large universe of what Transformers is, and where they've come from, and how we relate to them, and how they relate to themselves."

That doesn't necessarily mean The Last Knight is "setting" them up - just that it connects. Some of the spinoffs for instance, we're told could be prequels or set way further back in history. Given the flashback sequences and ties to Earth's history in Michael Bay's movies so far, that fits the formula. Even Transformers: The Last Knight features King Arthur and WWII sequences. There are also outlines already written for Transformers 6 and 7 which will obviously connect as followups to The Last Knight.

More: The 22 Biggest Reveals From The Set of Transformers 5

Share your thoughts and theories on what this thing is and how and if Unicron should fit into the series somehow in the future.

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