After devoting much of the past decade to the TRANSFORMERS franchise, it seems that explosion maestro Michael Bay is ready to move on to other projects, and Variety reports that the director has found not one, but two possibilities.
The first project, 6 UNDERGROUND, originated as a spec script from Paul Wernick & Rhett Reese (DEADPOOL) and is slated to go into production with Skydance this summer for an expected summer 2019 release. Not many details about the movie are known, other than it will be an action film and was based upon an original idea from Wernick and Reese, but Variety's Justin Kroll added on Twitter that he's heard from sources that the film has been described as THE ROCK meets SUICIDE SQUAD. "Throughout his career Michael Bay has been unparalleled in creating global theatrical events," said David Ellison, CEO of Skydance Media. "We couldn’t be more thrilled to have this amazing team come together, bringing their unique style and vision to the movie."
Michael Bay's next project following 6 UNDERGROUND will likely be familiar to you, as it has long been on Steven Spielberg's slate. Based upon the novel by Daniel H. Wilson, ROBOPOCALYPSE tells the tale of humanity’s desperate stand against a robot uprising. The project was in development for years before Spielberg finally put it on hold, saying "We found that the film was costing a lot of money and I found a better way to tell the story more economically but also much more personally. I found the personal way into Robopocalypse, and so I just told everybody to go find other jobs, I’m starting on a new script and we’ll have this movie back on its feet soon." It seems that Steven Spielberg won't be returning to the project as Michael Bay is now in talks to take over, although Spielberg will likely remain involved, much as he was with TRANSFORMERS.
A synopsis of "Robopocalypse" via Amazon:
Not far into our future, the dazzling technology that runs our world turns against us. Controlled by a childlike—yet massively powerful—artificial intelligence known as Archos, the global network of machines on which our world has grown dependent suddenly becomes an implacable, deadly foe. At Zero Hour—the moment the robots attack—the human race is almost annihilated, but as its scattered remnants regroup, humanity for the first time unites in a determined effort to fight back. This is the oral history of that conflict, told by an international cast of survivors who experienced this long and bloody confrontation with the machines.
How do you feel about Michael Bay taking over ROBOPOCALYPSE?