transformers

Autobots, roll out!

The bad news: It costs $700.

It doesn’t transform, but it can roll out.

Has any franchise ever been more successful and less beloved than Transformers? Even before this week’s release of Transformers: The Last Knight, the series had made almost $3.8 billion worldwide, despite an average Rotten Tomatoes score of 32 and three straight sequels that run the gamut from “kind of crummy” to “possibly the actual worst mega-budget blockbuster ever made.”

Upstart stop-motion animation studio Laika hasn’t been doing so hot as of late. Though such early efforts as Coraline and Paranorman generated healthy grosses, the box-office receipts have been in a steady decline with The Boxtrolls and last summer’s Kubo and the Two Strings. Though their films have been marvels to behold across the board, their expenditures have increased as they’ve expanded and invested in new technologies, and Kubo ended up as their first flop when it needed to be their biggest hit. In what might seem like the most dire sign of all for the studio, Kubo director and Laika President/CEO Travis Knight has now taken high-profile work elsewhere.

Look, everyone knows that it's your obligation as a human being to go see a new 'Transfomrers' movie when it comes out whether you want to or not. It's the only explanation for the success of the past three films (since no one actually likes them) and it's the only explanation for the massive first weekend of 'Transformers: Age of Extinction,' which had the biggest opening of 2014 so far.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura gives us a peek at what 'Transformers 5' may look like, and addresses if we may see Unicron in the next film. Di Bonaventura is also the producer of the just-announced third 'G.I. Joe' movie and reveals just how close that movie came to not happening.

'Transformers: Age of Extinction' has just debuted a new trailer, and it's been released just in time to play before this weekend's 'Godzilla.' It's as if Michael Bay and company are saying "yeah, you've may have a fire breathing gigantic lizard, but we've got fire breathing gigantic dinobots. Check. Mate."

After the first bit of footage teased us with some dinobots at Super Bowl 2014, the complete 'Transformers 4' trailer has made its way online, and it brought along with it some of the dinobot action we've been craving.

Yesterday we confirmed that the Dinobots, those transformers that also turned into dinosaurs, would be in 'Transformers 4.' What we didn't know then is how big a role they'd play and with the film's new title, it seems they're going to be a big focal point. 'Transformers 4' is now officially titled 'Transformers: Age of Extinction.'

'Transformers 4' has been filming for a few months now, but other than the occasional set photo or video of something blowing up, things have been pretty quiet. Little questions like "What's the movie even about?" continue to go unanswered. And to be perfectly honest, those questions will continue to go unanswered for the time being ... but at least we now know that the film will somehow

It seems the Michael Bay 'Transformers' movies go through two rounds of casting: One for the human performers and another for the cars that will appear in the film. Bumblebee, who's been a sidekick to Shia LaBeouf's character in the previous three films, will return for 'Transformers 4' with a brand new look.