Producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura says a followup to Transformers: The Last Knight is being developed, along with the Bumblebee sequel. You may recall that Paramount had originally intended for The Last Knight - the fifth live-action Transformers movie overall - to kick off a shared universe of prequels and sequels featuring the robots in disguise. However, that was before the Michael Bay-helmed tentpole bombed with critics and disappointed at the box office in 2017, leaving the future of the franchise in doubt. It also put more pressure on last year's '80s-set prequel Bumblebee to reverse the series' downward trend and earn the property some much-need goodwill.
Fortunately, Bee's solo movie was up to the task. Although Bumblebee made less at the box office than Bay's five Transformers films before it, the Travis Knight-helmed adventure was a hit with critics and ultimately made its way to profitability, buoyed by the good word of mouth. It was thereafter reported that Bumblebee would serve as a reboot for the Transformers movies at large - an idea that seems to somewhat conflict with today's news.
Speaking to Cinema, Bonaventura (who has produced all the Transformersmovies to date) confirmed that a sequel to Bumblebee is in the works, as previously reported. However, he then revealed that a film set in "the main family series following the events of Transformers: The Last Knight" is also in active development right now.To be fair, there's room for interpretation in Bonaventura's comment. The Last Knight "sequel" that's being developed might be more of a soft reboot than a strict continuation of the fifth Transformers movie. That wouldn't be anything new for the franchise either; after all, 2014's Transformers; Age of Extinctionwas also a partial relaunch that focused on a different group of humans than Bay's original Transformers trilogy. That said, The Last Knight included some major plot threads that were left dangling for the sequel to pick up - namely,that earth contains Unicron,
They might end up doing just that, if they decide that reviving their initial plans for a shared universe is more trouble than it's worth. On the other hand, there are no doubt those who want to see the payoff to Transformers: The Last Knight's Unicron tease, especially since Bay is no longer working on the franchise. For now, we'll just have to wait and see what happens.
