Director Michael Bay has earned his fair share of criticism over the years for his distinctive approach to movie-making -- widely referred to as "Bayhem" -- all while cranking out blockbuster after blockbuster. However, you won't hear any unkind remarks about the filmmaker from Anthony Hopkins, who characterizes Bay as a "savant."
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While the Oscar winner surprised many when he joined the cast of "Transformers: The Last Knight," it was apparently an easy decision for Hopkins after he met Bay over breakfast to discuss the Paramount Pictures sequel.
“I thought, ‘This guy’s a genius, he really is,'" Hopkins revealed to Yahoo! Movies. “He’s the same ilk as Oliver Stone and [Steven] Spielberg and [Martin] Scorsese. Brilliance. Savants, really, they are. He’s a savant.”
The 79-year-old Hopkins, who had watched the first two "Transformers" films, stars in "The Last Knight" as Sir Edmund Burton, an astronomer and historian who lives on an estate in the English countryside with Autobots. From the trailers and television spots, we know Burton apparently specializes in the secret history of the Transformers on Earth.
RELATED: Secret History of Transformers Revealed in "Last Knight" Promo
The fifth film in the Paramount Pictures series, "The Last Knight" promises to shatter the core myths of the franchise while addressing one of its key questions: Why do the Transformers keep returning to Earth?
“The Last Knight” shatters the core myths of the Transformers franchise, and redefines what it means to be a hero. Humans and Transformers are at war, Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future lies buried in the secrets of the past, in the hidden history of Transformers on Earth. Saving our world falls upon the shoulders of an unlikely alliance: Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg); Bumblebee; an English Lord (Sir Anthony Hopkins); and an Oxford Professor (Laura Haddock).
There comes a moment in everyone’s life when we are called upon to make a difference. In Transformers: The Last Knight, the hunted will become heroes. Heroes will become villains. Only one world will survive: theirs, or ours.
The film sets the stage for the planned expansion of the $3.78 billion franchise that includes a Bumblebee spinoff slated for 2018, another Transformers sequel in 2019, and a possible origin movie for the constantly warring Autobots and Decepticons.
Directed by Michael Bay, “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. The film opens June 23.