Who in the world would have predicted that the TRANSFORMERS franchise would be such a financial juggernaut? Sure, before the first film came out in 2007, people knew it would be a hit on some level–surely it wouldn’t have ever been funded unless they had faith. The real head-scratcher here is that they’ve managed to break $1 billion worldwide with the last two films, despite the low quality of the movies themselves (TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION seems to be widely accepted as the worst entry in the series).

All the same, Michael Bay and company must be doing something right, otherwise they wouldn’t be hitting it off so well at the box office. Fans of the series know that there’s a fifth TRANSFORMERS film in the making–and many more to come, if the writer’s room is any indication. Not only is Mark Wahlberg coming back to reprise his role, but director Michael Bay is once again returning to the franchise he’s made famous. The film is slated for a tentative summer release in 2017, indicating that the shooting date would be fast-approaching.

That assumption appears to be correct, as My Entertainment World is now reporting that TRANSFORMERS 5 will begin shooting in May of this year. As of right now, there are no set locations, and no specific day, but given the schedule that most movies work on nowadays, May seems to be a reasonable date. With Michael Bay back in the saddle, things will likely fall into place pretty quickly.

It’d be easy to be pretty cynical about this film. Michael Bay hasn’t exactly brought his A-game to the franchise, and given his pull over at the studio, who’s to say that any amazing work done with the script won’t get thrown out in favor of whatever Bay wants. That being said, Bay is coming off of a box office disappointment (13 HOURS made around $45 million off its $50 million budget), so perhaps the filmmaker will come into this film with more of an open mind, and that he’ll feel like he’ll have something to prove. If the TRANSFORMERS writer’s room–which was packed with some of the best talent in Hollywood–is everything we hoped it would be, and Bay accepts the script, then we can be in for a pretty great flick. After all, we live in an age where most blockbuster films have to at least be competent in order to be successful, and as such, this franchise can only fail upward so much.

Are you looking forward to the latest TRANSFORMERS movie? Let us know in the comments down below!

SOURCE: My Entertainment World (via Coming Soon)