Paramount Drops ‘Transformers 6’ From 2019 Release Slate, Hints At A Possible Reboot

The fate of the Transformers franchise now lies on the shaky ground after Paramount officially scratched out Transformers 6 from its release slate.

The Transformers franchise kicked off in 2007 under the helm of Michael Bay. Until the third installment,  Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the franchise experienced success-laden years. After that, however, it all began to go downhill. The most recent movie, Transformers: The Last Knight garnered the lowest box office returns of $605 million worldwide despite having the highest production budget of all five films. However, according to The Wrap, despite having quite dismal grossing, Transformers 5 was Paramount’s top release in 2017.

Transformers 6 was slated for release on June 28, 2019. Now that that’s out of the question, the spinoff Bumblebee is the only franchise related film left in the line-up.

The New Era of the Transformers franchise

Back at the Toy Fair in February, rumors spread that Transformers is going to face a reboot. According to the Transformer fansite TFW2005, who was present at the Toy Fair, Hasbro said that Paramount has set up a fully loaded writers room to oversee the next generation of Transformer films after the release of Bumblebee. Despite the cancellation of Transformers 6, it seems that Paramount and Hasbro’s ambitions are running higher.

The company has not confirmed a total reboot of the franchise but, critics are quick to spy that no other Transformer films are set for release in the next two years. There are only G.I. Joe and Micronauts for 2020 and Dungeons and Dragons for 2021. There is still hope for the Paramount-Hasbro event film for 2021.

As speculations continue to run about, Bumblebee will now be the sole movie carrying the Transformer legacy. Travis Knight, director of Kubo and the Two Strings, will be leading the film. Starring in the flick will be Hailee Steinfeld and John Cena. Bumblebee will be an origin movie of the fan-favorite Autobot when he first encountered humans on Earth.  

Tiffany Haddish’s comedy Limited Partners will now be taking Transformers 6’s June 28 slot. In addition to that, Paramount has also dropped the release date of Elton John’s biopic Rocketman for May 17, 2019. Matthew Vaughn and Taron Egerton are once again teaming up as producer-star actor with Dexter Fletcher between them as director. Lastly, Paramount has moved up their Pet Sematary reboot, based on Stephen King’s novel of the same title, to April 5, 2019.