Michael Bay admits that he should’ve stopped making Transformers movies a long time ago

No, not before he even made the first one, internet jokesters. Speaking with Unilad UK (via IndieWire), Bay revealed that Transformers executive producer Steven Spielberg told him he should stop after three, which Bay fully intended to do… until the studio parked a truck full of money outside of his house. That might not have literally happened, though it would’ve been appropriate for this franchise, but Bay does say that Paramount “begged” him to do a fourth movie (the crummy Age Of Extinction), and when that one “made a billion too,” the studio “begged” him to make a fifth one (the awful Last Knight).

He says he “should have stopped” before making those, but “they were fun to do” at least. One potentially interesting detail in this is that Bay doesn’t say when Spielberg advised him to stop, so we don’t know if it was while he was making the first three movies or after he had finished the third one (Dark Of The Moon, which is actually a solid movie when you compare it to the other four).

Spielberg never seemed particularly hands-on with this franchise, because surely they would’ve been a little better if he were, so it seems unlikely that this “stop after three” suggestion was in response to any of the actual films. He most likely just knew that the world didn’t necessarily need five Transformers movies directed by Michael Bay when Sunbow Productions had already put out a perfect Transformers movie in the ‘80s.