Mark Wahlberg Returning To Transformers?
Mark Wahlberg looks to be coming back to the Transformers series.
Michael Bay has left the Transformers franchise. Now, we know that Steven Caple Jr. will be directing the future installments. How much of the past will he be bringing in? According to insider Daniel Richtman, quite a lot. Richtman has heard that Paramount Studios wants Mark Wahlberg to return to Transformers to play his character Cade Yeager.
Mark Wahlberg played Yeager in the fourth movie, Transformers: Age of Extinction, and the fifth installment, Transformers: The Last Knight in 2017. Previously, it’s been reported that he is done with the franchise. However, it’s been a while, and nothing ever seems to be off the table in Hollywood. Wahlberg may have better performances in movies like The Departed, but action thrillers like Transformers does seem to be his staple over the past couple decades.
That being said, we are hearing a flood of updates from Richtman on Transformers right now. A few days ago, he claimed that the studio is looking to bring Megan Fox back in. While she is still a name attached to the franchise, she hasn’t been in the movies since the second one. It hasn’t been as long since we saw Mark Wahlberg in the movies. Is Paramount looking to bring back as many actors from previous Transformers installments as possible? It seems unlikely they’ll bring back Shia Labeouf considering the negative publicity he’s experienced over the years. However, there have been plenty of actors in the movies so far Paramount could be getting in touch with. Still, these are just rumors at this point.
These claims are particularly interesting since we’ve also heard that the studio is looking to do things differently moving forward. While it would be hard to say that the Michael Bay movies were exactly rich with deep human characters, the story still focused on them. It was characters like Mark Wahlberg’s Cade Yeager that got all the dialogue. The robots weren’t the focus characters. In future installments, Paramount reportedly wants the stories to focus more on the robots. They want the robots to be more realized characters, with wants and needs that the stories focus around. If that’s true, it would sound like the studio would be less interested in bringing back past characters from the franchise.
These days, Mark Wahlberg is working a fair amount. Due to the pandemic, some of his movies have been delayed for release, and they are stacking up. He is still filming new ones and has more projects lined up for the future. His upcoming movies include The Six Billion Dollar Man, Uncharted, and Joe Bell. Recently, we saw him in Netflix’s action-comedy, Spenser Confidential. The movie was considered somewhat forgettable but entirely watchable. A fun time. These have been words used to describe a lot of his movies lately, though Joe Bell got to premiere at a film festival in 2020 and is said to be a more serious drama. The film was recently recut for theaters and was hopeful for the Oscars season.
Does it seem likely Mark Wahlberg is in for another Transformers installment? Hard to say. It’s also unclear whether this is truly the direction Paramount will want to take. It would seem like they would want to go in a new direction as they leave the Michael Bay movies behind. If so, will they also be wanting to bring back past characters? We’ll have to wait to hear more about what their plans are for the franchise as casting announcements are made.
