Michael Bay Leaves Transformers?

Hot on the heels of the ridic technical stats from T2: Revenge of the Fallen, Michael Bay is making headlines again. In semi-shocking news, Bay told wenn.com (via IMDB) that Transformers 2 will be his last directorial entry into the series.

Speculation arose a while back about Bay's future film intentions, but I don't know if anyone actually saw this coming. True, I suppose the exiting of writers Kurtzman and Orci from the franchise (they said they won't be writing the third film, if there is one) could have been a sign of things to come from the boom-happy director, but I honestly thought he'd stick around for one more and top off the trilogy. But he was pretty clear about his stance:

"After three and a half years of making these movies, I feel like I've had enough of the Transformers world. I need to do something totally divergent, something without any explosions."

I'm not sure how reliable this source is, but I would imagine that they wouldn't just conjure up a quote out of thin air, so I guess we can take this as truth until proven otherwise. Slashfilm suggested that Bay's small project with no explosions would be Pain & Gain, based on a couple of Miami bodybuilders who get involved in a drug deal gone bad.

I guess it would be wrong of us as an audience to demand that Bay make the same type of film over and over again, refusing to allow him to stretch his creative wings. But at the same time, that type of movie is what he's great at doing and is a proven way to make some money for the studios. It'll be interesting to see who will greenlight a Bay film that doesn't fit the profile. In my mind, this next project will be like a concept album for a singer - if it works, it'll establish some indie cred, and if it tanks, he'll go right back to the bread and butter.

UPDATE 6/19/09 - Well, it's a good thing I put a question mark in this title. Apparently the source DID conjure this quote out of thin air. Michael Bay responded today by saying he never said that and merely talked about taking a vacation. It's good to know that he appreciates his place in pop culture and isn't completely separating himself from the type of projects he's simultaneously loved and hated for.