Lorenzo di Bonaventura was doing interviews today on behalf of G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which he and his cohorts were describing essentially as a reboot of the franchise that kicked off with the popular but not particularly great G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra. But of course, the first G.I. Joe isn't di Bonaventura's biggest hit based on a toy-- that would be Transformers, which seemed to have wrapped up its run when the third film came out and both Michael Bay and Shia LaBeouf suggested they wouldn't want to return. But there's still money to be made, and di Bonaventura and others have been planning a fourth film for a while now. Today, talking to MTV, di Bonaventura confirmed for the first time that not only will Michael Bay be involved in the new film, but he'll be directing it in time for a 2014 release. Check out what he had to say below.



To be fair, I also talked to di Bonaventura today and he made the same promise to me of summer 2014-- but he only told MTV that Bay would be back to direct, so more power to them. As you can tell it's still far, far too early to speculate on the story for a new film, or even which stars would be back for a new film-- though I'm guessing that the franchise is as finished with Shia LaBeouf as he seems with them, so I'd at least count on a new lead. With Battleship, another film based on Hasbro toys, making its best effort to look just like Transformers, it's clear the giant robot franchise is still a huge deal, and as far away as 2014 seems, Transformers will still be big then too.

As awful as the Transformers franchise turned out with nonsense like Dark of the Moon, it's hard to imagine the movies without Michael Bay, so it's a good thing they've talked him into returning. But beyond that, I'm not really sure what to hope for. Any die-hard Transformers fans out there who want to weigh in on the good news? Or can you convince me that Michael Bay's return is the worst thing possible? Let us know in the comments.