Michael Bay has been always known for creating films that only a specific set of audiences enjoy. The director known for creating iconic scenes of explosions, guns, actions, and stunts was also the director of the first live-action Transformer movie that debuted in 2007. But after several sequels, the movie lost its charm along with several million dollars. Here’s why…
Also read: Why Director Michael Bay Was Too Scared To Make Transformers?
What happened to Michael Bay’s beloved Transformers?
Read the review of Michael Bay’s latest film Ambulance: Michael Bay’s Ambulance Any Good? Here’s The Early Reviews
The first movie in the car-robot wars franchise was released in 2007 to people worldwide. The movie was focused on the war between robots with human lives entangled among them. Becoming an instant hit, the movie went on to earn massive dollars worldwide.
Focusing on a war between Autobots and Decepticons, the movie is filled to the brim with what a regular Michael Bay movie looks like right now. But during that time, it was all new for the public. The scenes were masterful, the comedy was kept in check with some adult jokes scattered throughout. But later on, the series started to fail time and time again. The people…started to get bored.
In a way to say, Michael Bay didn’t allow the Transformers franchise to grow up. It stayed in the same 2007-ish style with similar stories of good vs. evil and more people getting involved in the conflict. But the only reason for this failure was not repetitiveness, but also several factors.
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The repetitive action of Michael Bay
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Although the Transformers universe is massive with many more interesting characters to explore, the series eventually got boring for following the same set of action scenes, plotlines, and the same hyped-up scenes that made the franchise popular in the first phase.
Michael Bay did not allow female transformers to be seen in the movie even though they exist in the Transformers universe. The director had included some adult jokes in the first films but later on, the comedy became just pure cringe. The jokes were cracked for the laugh of a 7-year-old while its age demographic was the people in their teens and above.
The movies also followed a similar sub-plot for the military side of the USA. Following the boots of several army officers, the movies made it a clear point of giving a thrill of patriotism with inspiration to serve the country. However, the patriotism got up to a saturation point where the movie became predictable. And thus, this also fell in the repetitive category. The first movie saw massive success for the directors as well as the actors. The later sequels also performed relatively well but the franchise hit an all-time low with the release of Transformers: The Last Knight (2017).
Since the release of Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2014), the main teenage hero played by Shia LeBeouf was replaced by a middle-aged Mark Wahlberg portraying an older protagonist. The hero didn’t set with the demographic that usually watched these movies and therefore, the connection that it had with the previous movies was instantly broken as we were thrown into a new story but in the same universe.
Thus, the downfall of the franchise came in 2017 when Transformers: The Last Knight earned only $605 million, which is relatively low compared to other movies in the franchise. It was reported that the movie lost Paramount Pictures a whopping $100 million for its poor performance. The franchise did try to have a little rebound by releasing Bumblebee but it seemed that the demographic had moved on.
Getting repetitive with similar plotlines was the downfall of the Transformers franchise (cough…Fast & Furious…cough) although the series did give Hollywood a top-tier director with a fantasy for cars, explosions, and patriotism. Michael Bay is also known for directing 6 Underground, Armageddon, and 13 Hours: The secret soldiers of Benghazi.
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