'Transformers 4' may arrive in 2014

'Transformers 4' may not feature franchise star Shia LaBeouf, who says he's out.

Ever since Transformers: Dark of the Moon made a billion dollars at the worldwide box office, it’s been a no-brainer that Paramount would be returning to the well for Transformers 4. However, beyond the knowledge that Transformers 4 was coming, everything else has been rumor, including whether or not Michael Bay would be returning to the director’s chair, and/or who will be starring in the film if franchise staple Shia LaBeouf is out (which he claims he is).

While we’re still waiting to hear what Transformers 4 will entail, today we at least have a much more solid idea of when the fourth chapter may be coming. Read on for details.

Coming Soon has it that Paramount is looking at a 2014 release date for Transformers 4. This would presumably be a summer 2014 release date, as the previous three installments were all released in the June or July blocks. A 2014 release date is of little surprise, since Paramount and Hasbro – the toy company that first launched the Transformers brand – are clearly working from a ‘strike while the iron is hot‘ mentality, as evidenced by the rapid-fire release dates of the Transformers movie trilogy to date:

• Transformers (2007)
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

If anything, it’s surprising that the studio is allowing an extra year of breathing room before cranking out this fourth film. Whether that time is being allotted in order to allow Bay to finish work on some of the “smaller films” he’s been itching to work on (see: Pain & Gain) is probably going to be a point of much speculation – but it could just as easily be a case of the TF3‘s continued success delaying the start of work on TF4, or the studio having a crowded summer 2013 schedule already in place. Of course, these points are not mutually exclusive, and it could be any combination of them that has TF4 on course for 2014.

Now that a deadline has been set, we can expect to see the ball get rolling on the film fairly soon. So, questions like ‘Is Bay coming back?’ ‘Will TF4 and TF5 shoot back-to-back?’ ‘Is Jason Statham really going to star?’ ‘Will it take place somewhere other than Earth?’ etc., will start to get answered sooner, rather than later.

Ben Kendrick blogs at Screen Rant.