A majority of any news concerning Michael Bay‘s films has skipped the Hollywood trades and studios press releases and have been released online via his website. His latest announcement wasn’t for Pain & Gain, but for Transformers 4. And it isn’t just a casting announcement that is making waves, it’s that Transformers 4 will set up a brand new trilogy.

First up the casting news. Bay has cast What Richard Did‘s Jack Reynor to play a race car driver and boyfriend to the daughter of Mark Walhberg‘s character. Though Bay didn’t mention any specific details about the character, casting calls that went out described the character as such. So there could have been changes to the character since the call went out, but we won’t get into that much since Bay’s characters have as much personality as a rock.

But why Reynor? Well here’s Bay’s explaination:

Now Bay has said that Transformers 4 would be the start of a brand new trilogy, but he also added that the latest installment would not be a reboot. Here’s what he officially had to say.

I seriously hope that Transformers 4 will do more than just feel different, I hope the actual Transformers look different as well. Asking for something like a story would be a bit too much, so all I ask for is Transformers that can be recognized by more than a color palette swap.

[Source: Michael Bay]