The original “Transformers” gang is getting back together.
Michael Bay is in talks to return to the “Transformers” franchise and direct the next installment at Paramount, while Steven Spielberg is returning as executive producer and will oversee the creative direction of the IP, alongside longtime producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Paramount said Tuesday.
Bay last directed 2017’s “Transformers: The Last Knight” in the franchise.
Paramount Pictures Co-Chairs Josh Greenstein and Dana Goldberg met with Spielberg as one of their first meetings at the studio following Skydance’s merger with Paramount in August of 2025. Now “Transformers 8” is one of the first big new projects after the Paramount-WB acquisition closed, under the newly formed Skydance.
Should a deal come to pass, Bay would direct the script written by “It: Welcome to Derry” writer Jason Fuchs. Plot details are being kept under wraps, but “Transformers 8” is set in modern day.
Shia LaBeouf is not returning for the new film, TheWrap has learned.
Di Bonaventura, Mark Vahradian, Don Murphy, Tom DeSanto and Hasbro will produce.
Fuch’s script is one of many in development at the studio as “Jurassic World” writer Derek Connolly is also writing the “Transformers” and “G.I. Joe” crossover movie, based on the Hasbro toy lines for Paramount, The Wrap previously reported.
The untitled new movie comes after 2023’s “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” where Anthony Ramos’ character Noah Diaz was offered a job with G.I. Joe in the film’s post-credit scene.
The first Michael Bay-directed “Transformers” films were game-changing box office hits in the late-2000s/early 2010s, temporarily sitting alongside the “Harry Potter” series, the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films, the “Shrek” franchise and the “Spider-Man” trilogy atop the franchise blockbuster tentpole mountain.
While domestic interest peaked with “Revenge of the Fallen” ($409 million in 2009) and “Dark of the Moon” ($355 million in 2011), 3D bumps for “Dark of the Moon” in 2011 and a shrewd bet on China with “Age of Extinction” (which set its entire third act in Hong Kong and featured Chinese government officials racing to the rescue) pushed those films over $1 billion worldwide.
“Transformers: The Last Knight” tumbled in 2017, earning just $131 million domestic, $228 million in China (compared to $300 million for “Age of Extinction”) and $605 million worldwide; and the cheaper, better-reviewed, Travis Knight-directed 80’s prequel “Bumblebee” earned $127 million/$171 million/$471 million in 2018 on a $135 million budget.
Bay is repped by WME.
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