Autobots, Disengage! <i>Transformers</i> Sequel to Introduce New Robots?

CBR

Autobots, Disengage! Transformers Sequel to Introduce New Robots?

By Terri Schwartz

Published Sep 13, 2012

Hasbro President Brian Goldner recently teased that the blockbuster franchise could feature a revamp that introduces new Transformers to help bolster toy sales.

Transformers 4 might be moving on without its original cast, but is it moving on without its original Transformers too?

It seems as though the new movie could be ditching Bumblebee, Starscream and the rest of the robot faces we've come to know so well over the last three Transformers movies. Hasbro President Brian Goldner was at the UBS Best of Americas 2012 Conference Wednesday to talk about the company's plans for their toy lines in the coming year. Apparently Transformers sales slagged with the release of Transformers: Dark of the Moon because there weren't any new characters to sell, so Hasbro is planning to revamp their entire line-up for Transformers 4.

"Transformers 4 will have a new cast of [robot] characters and it will be a story revolving around these new characters," TFW2005 reports (via ComicBookMovie.com). "[Goldner] said it’s normal for any brand to experience the situation (what happened to Transformers 3 toyline) and stated that brands need re-imagining, reinvent and hinted that the same is to happen with Transformers 4."

So does that mean we'll lose Optimus Prime and Megatron too, or just that new characters like the Dinobots will be introduced? We'll have to wait to find out for sure, but we'll be interested to see how far director Michael Bay is willing to stray from the earlier films during his last Transformers movie. After all, we have learned Transformers 4 will likely take place in the future and in outer space.

Bay opened up about Transformers 4 in an interview back in June. He clarified that the movie won't start from scratch with the Transformers franchise.

“It’s not a reboot, that’s maybe the wrong word,” the director said. “I don’t want to say reboot because then people will think we’re doing a Spider-Man and starting from the beginning. We’re not. We’re taking the story that you’ve seen — the story we’ve told in three movies already — and we’re taking it in a new direction. But we’re leaving those three as the history. It all still counts."

Transformers 4 is due in theaters on June 29, 2014.