As we now know Michael Bay is returning to the Transformers universe for the fourth film in the series. Mark Wahlberg is stepping up to join the Autobots and battle the Decepticons, while in-demand Chinese actress Li Bing-bing (in her second major English language role after her appearance as Ada Wong in Resident Evil 5) has officially been announced to join the franchise - which will feature location shooting in Hong Kong & China. In recent weeks the line-up has also expanded to include US talent such as Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Sophia Myles and T J Miller.
There’s conflicting reports on the story. We know it's not a formal reboot, but that it's considered to be a narrative break from the human characters seen in previous outings. We also know that there’ll be some major Chinese and Hong Kong involvement in the film, with news of a reality show being launched to find four featured roles for the film. The Transformers movies have done incredibly well at the Chinese Box Office, and -as with Iron Man 3 - there’ll be a China-centric version of the film... We DO hope that version features more action rather than merely bad product placement and moments that make no contribution to the film as was apparently the problem in the Chinese Iron Man 3 segments. In that case, more scenes WERE shot, but didn’t make it into the final cut, including one action sequence featuring a well-known Chinese martial arts movie star that was even discussed as a possible internet exclusive promo, maybe they’ll turn up on DVD or Blu-Ray)
As for Transformers, Bay says he's learned things from the previous movies. We can only hope there's some character development involved and the memory that this a franchise based around kids' toys rather than the unapologetic sex-and-metal vibe of the previous chapters...
