Michael Bay

After about a year of rumors and tentative confirmations and completely valid assumptions, Michael Bay has confirmed that he will indeed return to direct Transformers 5 — to the surprise of pretty much no one at all. Although the director previously said Age of Extinction would be his last time in the director’s chair on the blockbuster franchise, Bay can’t seem to keep himself away from all his big shiny robot friends.

A second, red-band trailer for 13 Hours has been unveiled and it trades the first spot’s slow-burning tension for scorching violence, an all-out assault coming from mysterious enemies. Both trailers are united by Bay’s distinctive visual aesthetic, which can only be described as “what if real life was a first-person shooter video game”.

10. That’s the number of years we have left in the Transformers franchise…for now. This year, Paramount and writer / producer Akiva Goldsman recruited a brain trust of writers to formulate plans for Transformers sequels, as well as potential spinoffs and animated projects. Their work yielded plans for Transformers 5, as well as an animated origin story prequel. But how many more films are in the works? Rumor has it they have plans for at least five.

The most recent attempt to bring Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan into the modern movie era didn’t quite garner keep Shadow Recruit in the spotlight, so where better to go than TV? Networks are reportedly competing for a new series based on the CIA super-analyst, as envisioned by LOST alum Carlton Cuse and Michael Bay.

After months of brain-storming, the Transformers writers room has finished their work…for now. Writers room head Akiva Goldsman is officially scripting Transformers 5, with Mark Wahlberg confirmed to return and Michael Bay in talks to return to the director’s chair after declaring he was finished with the franchise. In addition, that previously rumored animated spinoff is officially happening with the writers of Ant-Man.

Paramount’s plans for the continuation of the Transformers franchise are certainly ambitious — earlier this year the studio announced a new writer’s room which will plot the future of the series, including sequels and spinoffs, like Transformers 5. So far we know that Mark Wahlberg is returning for the sequel, though not much else is known about the film, which may or may not be directed by Michael Bay. But some potential new plot details have been revealed, giving us an idea about where the sequel will take Cade Yaeger and the Autobots in their next outing.

We have been hearing rumblings that Bad Boys 3 was one the way for the better part of a decade now. Maybe director Michael Bay could squeeze it in when he was allowed out of Transformers jail. Maybe Will Smith would take a break from being the biggest movie star in the world to answer Martin Lawrence’s phone calls. Maybe, the news that Joe Carnahan was circling the latest entry in this nutty franchise would actually come to pass. After years of false starts, it looks like Sony is planning to bring this series back in a big way. They’ve not only set a release date for Bad Boys 3, they’ve set a release date for Bad Boys 4.

Michael Bay sure did hustle on the production of his latest film — casting on 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi was first announced back in January, and today brings the first trailer for Bay’s action-packed latest, which looks to offer a bit of a change of pace for the director, who’s spent his recent years focusing on big muscles and bigger robots.

In the tradition of ScreenCrush series like You Think You Know Movies, You Think You Know TV, and Post Credits comes a brand new YouTube series: Top 5! Each week (or so; look we’re busy guys), ScreenCrush editor and critic Matt Singer will count down a particular topic from the world of movies (and probably write these introductory posts in the third person).

A remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (or any Hitchcock, for that matter) seems absurdly unreasonable and destined to fail. A remake of The Birds from producer Michael Bay and his Platinum Dunes banner seems even more absurdly unreasonable, but here we are. The remake has been in development for some time now, but Bay & Co. have finally found a brave soul to volunteer their services.