Transformers

Transformers is a live-action film released by DreamWorks in 2007, with Executive Producer Steven Spielberg and Director Michael Bay. The story follows the Transformers' arrival on modern-day Earth and their interactions with the human race, as they search for the life-giving All Spark and continue their ages-old civil war. The movie is a new imagining of the Transformers brand, drawing on past Transformers fiction but also distinct in its own right.

The principal cast members are Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, and Megan Fox, with Peter Cullen and Hugo Weaving as the voices of the Transformers' iconic leaders. About sixty percent of the film's character designs and visual effects were created by Industrial Light and Magic, the effects-wizards behind the Wars Star Wars films. The remaining forty percent were done by Michael Bay's company, Digital Domain.

Originally slated to release in the summer of 2006, the film arrived in US theaters on July 3, 2007, and hit UK theaters on July 27 and French theaters on July 25. It premiered in Australia on June 12, 2007, and was released there and in a number of Asian countries on June 28, 2007. An extended cut of the film featuring footage not in the original was released to IMAX theatres on September 21, 2007.

Franchise
Despite mixed critical reaction to the radical redesigns of the characters, and reviews criticizing the focus on the humans at the expense of the robots, Transformers was a massive box office success. It is the forty-fifth most successful film released and the fifth most successful of 2007, grossing approximately US$709 million worldwide. The film won four awards from the Visual Effects Society and was nominated for three Academy Awards for Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, and Best Sound Editing.

The sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, was released on June 24, 2009, and once again despite the film being panned by critics it netted even more than first film. A third film, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, was released on June 29, 2011, in 3-D and went on to gross over $1 billion dollars.

Transformers 4
On February 13, 2012, Paramount Pictures announced that a fourth Transformers movie will begin production with Michael Bay as director. Its scheduled release date is June 2014.