By now it’s become an all too familiar line, although there’s always a chance it could actually be true this time. Over the past few years, Michael Bay has been constantly promising that he will walk away from the Transformers franchise, only to be lured back for one more movie. Back in February, we learned that the fourth Transformers movie would be a reboot of sorts, and yet still Michael Bay has decided to return to the director’s chair. Will he ever allow anyone else to milk this cash cow? Well, according to Bay, this is will officially be his last Transformers flick. But does he actually mean it or is he going to continue to tease us indefinitely?

The update comes courtesy of a recent L.A. Times article about the launch of Transformers: The Ride — 3D at Universal Studios. Here is the exact quote:

“There’s plenty more Transformer action to come with a major new video game release, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, due in August and another Bay movie in the works. (The director, by the way, says that the fourth film will include some redesign of the robots and an entirely new cast. He also said it will be his last and set the franchise up ‘for the next guy.’)”

The mention of an “entirely new cast” is also an interesting tidbit. Earlier this year Bay had said there would be a lot of new cast members, but also some continuity from the previous films. Now it sounds like they might be pulling a G.I. Joe: Retaliation and potentially killing off all of the existing characters (well, the human ones, at least). It could be a promising possibility, if not for the fact that Bay is still directing.

Transformers 4 would be an ideal jumping on point for a new creative team, but I guess Paramount wants to ensure that the new trilogy gets off to a safe start with Bay at the helm. It seems to indicate that whoever takes over the series will not have much creative input and will simply follow the established template (not unlike what Marvel has been doing for their sequels). Are you looking forward to the possibility of a Transformers movie without Michael Bay? Who would you like to see take over the reins?