Michael Bay's Next 'Transformers' Movie Villain Revealed

Optimus Prime in ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’ (Photo: Paramount Pictures, ILM/AP)

By Graeme McMillan, The Hollywood Reporter

Something wicked this way comes…back.

The march toward next year’s Transformers: The Last Knight is well under way, with a new teaser announcing the imminent start of production on the movie and revealing a new face for an old menace due to return in the June 2017 release.

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The teaser was itself given a teaser late last week, with a short video released via Twitter spelling out “I’m coming for you May 31” via Morse code:

That would apparently be a nod to this new tease:

Who is that new Transformer? Turns out, it’s not a newcomer at all—the same tease, released on Michael Bay’s Instagram feed, revealed that it is a redesigned Megatron, the villainous robot from the first three Transformers movies.

“It’s starting. This week production,” the Instagram caption reads. “Megatron is back.” After a brief shoot in Cuba, production on the movie is set to begin in Detroit later this week.

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Does this mean that Megatron is the last knight of the movie’s title? Not necessarily. Not only does the Transformers movie mythology include “The Knights of Cybertron,” a group tasked with defending the all-powerful All Spark from being used for nefarious purposes, recently revealed plans to build a cross-franchise Hasbro movie universe mean that ROM—whose subtitle is “The Space Knight"—might be introduced into proceedings earlier than expected.

Transformers: The Last Knight will open June 23, 2017.

‘Transformers’ flashback: Watch Optimus Prime and Megatron face off in and above the city: