It is my fervent belief that, centuries from now, Michael Bay's Transformers films will be looked back on as artifacts of profound weirdness. There are lots of strange things about these movies (their desperate, frantic scope, their gleefully nonsensical plots, their bit roles for actors like John Malkovich and Frances McDormand, their racism, their slapstick, their slapstick racism, their relentless celebration of the American military), and something that I, at least, find fascinating is that the very people who would most appreciate these surreal, billion-dollar clusterfucks are the same fans of avant-garde cinema who wouldn't sit through a Transformers movie if you paid them.

Luckily, I do get paid to sit through them, and I will make no apologies for finding delight in whatever the fuck it is Michael Bay's been doing all these years. (Also, I thought Pain & Gain was legitimately great. MOVING ON.) One of these movies featured dead Transformer fetuses, for chrissakes. I forget if it is the same one that also featured a robot's testicles? The first one had John Turturro getting pissed on by a robot. Lots of things don't make sense! Including these insanely expensive, insanely profitable films' titles: The first is just Transformers. Okay. The second is Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which is a mouthful and also... eh, whatever? (The Fallen was a robot, I think? In ancient Egypt, maybe?) The third one boasted my favorite title so far: Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which technically made sense with the plot but mostly seemed like something your dumb buddy would tell you about. "Play Pink Floyd and watch how it totally matches up with Transformers: The Movie, man. Blow your mind."

ANYWAY, there's now a title for the fourth (FOURTH!) Michael Bay movie that is actually a toy commercial and will make so, so much money, and it is called Transformers: Age of Extinction—which might not be quite as head-scratchingly obtuse as "Revenge of the Fallen" or "Dark of the Moon" but does, at least, pretty much guarantee that now Michael Bay is all about the Dinobots—AKA ROBOT DINOSAURS. Okay! I'm sure some breed of nerd cares about those, right? I'm up for it!

Here's Marky Mark—who will be costarring with Kelsey Grammer, Stanley Tucci, Marky Mark's four children, and some Chinese people who won a reality show, including "Candice Zhao, winner of the 35th Miss Bikini International Pageant China, who will play a "sexy goddess'"—discussing the film in the most insane terms possible:

"I'm really excited about Transformers," Wahlberg says. "Michael Bay and I just did Pain & Gain and we had such a good time making it. He came to me and said, 'I'm kind of doing a whole different reboot on Transformers. Are you interested?' I said, 'Yeah, I'll do it!' I loved the idea and I think we can make something really cool and kick-ass. This is not something where it's already established and I'm just in there to get a paycheck. I'm thinking this is the most important role of my career and I can do something really special." (Via.)

These movies are like whirlpools of screeching spectacle and inexplicable decisions and flailing Hollywood excess. AND WHY DOES LORENZO DI BONAVENTURA SOUND LIKE A ROBOT? WHAT EVEN IS THIS