Transformers: The Last Knight star Mark Wahlberg says he believes that director Michael Bay will eventually come back to the franchise. This is despite the fact that the filmmaker recently came out and announced that the latest installment in the Transformers series will be his final work in the series.
Wahlberg first entry into the Transformers live-action movie property was with 2014's Transformers: Age of Extinction, before he returned for The Last Knight to reprise his role of Cade Yeager. Both films were directed by Bay, who has helmed all of the installments in the franchise since its conception in 2007. Bay's first four Transformers movies were extremely lucrative too, grossing over $3.7 billion worldwide. The saga has often been dubbed "critic-proof," since those big box office returns have come in the face of a largely-negative critical reception.
In an interview with Comic Book, Wahlberg shares his thoughts on Bay's comments about leaving the Transformers franchise - noting that the director has made similar comments, multiple times, in the past:
"You know it's one of those things where Michael has built this entire universe right, and he will decide what he wants to do and how he wants to do it. Right now he says he doesn't want to do another film and he says that after every film because they are so difficult to make and he pretty much has to do it single-handedly, even with all the help that he has because all of the movie is in his mind."
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The actor continued, suggesting that while he is pretty skeptical that The Last Knight will be Bay's last work on the series, it's not impossible that he is properly done with the franchise now, either:
"So he'll decide that and I would be hard pressed to see him walk away and put it in somebody else's control and care. I mean, that's just the Michael that I know, but you never know, sometimes people decide to move on, so we'll see what happens."
Should Bay finally walk away from the franchise he has built over the last 10 years. the Transformers movie series will still continue to move forward - with spin-offs and future sequels already laid out for the future. First in the pipeline is 2018's Bumblebee spin-off that will be set in the 1980s and directed by Kubo and the Two Strings helmer Travis Knight (based on a script written by Transformers writing group member Christina Hodson).
Meanwhile, The Last Knight is looking to have the lowest domestic opening for a Transformers movie yet - and since box office gross is arguably one of the biggest driving force for the Transformers series to continue, it could also be a big factor in the director's decision making process.
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Source: Comic Book
