A stoic -- dare we say, pensive -- Optimus Prime stands tall in the first poster for "Transformers: The Last Knight," the latest film in the ongoing battle between giant robots, and Michel Bay's final go-round with the franchise as director.

Of course, Prime's stance in the center of the frame isn't the real focus of the piece. In the lower right of the image we see Bumblebee -- or, rather, the popular Autobot warrior's arm. Is this a clue as to what happens following the intriguing, and not just a little bit troubling clash between the (former?) friends and allies seen in the film's first trailer? The poster's tagline, "Rethink Your Heroes," would indicate that perhaps we're seeing a shift in allegiances from Autobot to Decepticon for at least one character...

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The fifth film in the series is not only poised to set the stage for even more sequels, it's also meant to provide the foundation for a number of franchise spinoffs. Among the future films currently in development from Hasbro and Paramount Studios are a standalone Bumblebee film (See? He's not gonna die! Probably...), and a rumored animated feature detailing the Cybertronian origins of the consistently-warring Autobots and Decepticons.

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According to producer Lornezo di Bonaventura, “Transformers: The Last Knight” is designed to “open a really large universe of what Transformers is, and where they’ve come from, and how we relate to them, and how they relate to themselves.”

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“Transformers: The Last Knight” arrives in Summer 2017, as the studio and toymaker Hasbro plot an expansion of the $3.78 billion series that includes at the previously mentioned Bumblebee spinoff slated for 2018, another Transformers sequel in 2019, and a possible origin movie for the constantly warring Autobots and Decepticons.

Opening June 23, 2017, “Transformers: The Last Knight” stars franchise veterans Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson and John Turturro, joined by newcomers Isabela Moner, Liam Garrigan, Jerrod Carmichael, Mitch Pileggi, Laura Haddock, Santago Cabrera and Anthony Hopkins.