Speaking at the drearily titled UBS Best Of Americas 2012 Conference, Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner admitted in a moment of brutal honesty that the decision to kick off Transformers 4 with a whole new range of robots was motivated by the poor merchandise sales for the last movie in the franchise, 2011’s Transformers: Dark Of The Moon.
Director Michael Bay also back-pedalled on the idea that the movie is a reboot, saying, “It’s not a reboot, that’s maybe the wrong word. I don’t want to say reboot because then people will think we’re doing a Spider-Man and starting from the beginning. We’re not.
“We’re taking the story that you’ve seen—the story we’ve told in three movies already—and we’re taking it in a new direction. But we’re leaving those three as the history. It all still counts. I met with the writer before I went off to do Pain And Gain and we talked about a bunch of ideas. We let that simmer for a bit. He’s been thinking about stuff and now we’re getting back together next week to see what we’ve got and to see if it gels.”
Transformers 4 is due in cinemas 27 June 2014. Transformers: Dark Of The Moon is available on Triple Play DVD, digital copy and Blu-ray for £9.70 from Amazon.co.uk.
