Michael Bay made a sad announcement about the ‘Transformers’ movies

Director Michael Bay has some seriously impressive movies under his belt: Pearl Harbor, The Island, and the Transformers franchise, to name a few. He’s also in the midst of producing the sequel to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. However, when he spoke to Rolling Stone about his upcoming film 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, he dropped a bomb about the next installment in the Transformers series, revealing movie number five will be his last.

These films, the first of which hit theaters in 2007, make up a serious chunk of his directorial repertoire. The fifth is set to come out in 2017, and it will be the final time we see Michael Bay’s name on the franchise. “Transformers, I still have a great time,” he tells Rolling Stone. “It’s fun to do a movie that 100 million people will see. But this is the last one. I have to pass the reins to someone else.”

Even though the director has expressed similar sentiments before the last two movies, he insists that this time he’s for real. “J.J. [Abrams] told me, ‘You’re the only guy that could do this.’ But it’s time to move on. One more.”

What happens now is anyone’s guess. If another director is planning to fill his shoes, they’re keeping it well under wraps. As for Bay, we’ll just have to wait to see what else he has up his sleeve.

(Image via DreamWorks)