Remember spring 2013 when it was Michael Bay appreciation month and everyone was psyched about “Pain And Gain”? Yeah, that didn’t last. That critical narrative has sharply shifted upon the release of Bay’s next robot spectacle. Some don’t seem to care though. “They’ve talked about doing more,” Mark Wahlberg recently said glibly about Paramount and their new franchise re-starter “Transformers: Age Of Extinction.” Ahahhahaha, yeah. Right, they’ve just talked about it, who knows, maybe, right? Maybe this is just Wahlberg in denial that he is already signed on for three more of these movies (the idea always being to spawn a new franchise). Of course they’re making more.
Hell, the ‘Transformers’ series has made $2.6 billion dollars to date. Sh*t, “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” made $1.123 billion dollars worldwide and is the seventh highest grossing film of all time. You can rest assured that wasn’t because of Shia LaBeouf. So yes, believe that the “audience will dictate” whether there will be more films more, because you can bet they will. Even by 2014 standards (where most domestic tentpoles seem to be tapping out around $220 million), the fourth ‘Transformers’ film would have essentially be a box-office bomb to not move ahead (did you know that not one ‘Transformers’ film has grossed less than $315 million stateside?).
So, it’s probably a question of: is ‘Transformers’ going to make summer 2014 money? Or is it going to blow its competitors out of the water and make real summer blockbuster money? The box-office is slow this year any way you slice it, but if anyone can push past the $220 million benchmark, it’s Michael Bay. ‘Age of Extinction’ takes place several years after the events of ‘Dark Of The Moon.’ Its leads are now Mark Wahlberg, his daughter played by Nicola Peltz and her boyfriend played by up-and-coming Irish actor Jack Reynor (who many are banking on being a huge star, hence going from unknown to third-lead in this huge tentpole). In anticipation of the film’s release on June 27th, Paramount has released all kinds of goodies, clips, a multitude of TV spots, a clip, featurettes, etc. All of them full of explosions. Watch below and get ready for what could be the loudest and most crass (but perhaps best shot) action movie of the summer.
