Lieutenant Colonel Lennox, reporting for duty; Josh Duhamel is headed back to the world of Autobots and Decepticons after enlisting for Michael Bay’s sci-fi sequel, Transformers: The Last Knight.
Duhamel, who was a series stalwart before ducking out of Age of Extinction in 2014, took to Twitter to make the announcement, relaying a message posted by Bay himself. It tees up a screen duo of Josh Duhamel and Mark Wahlberg, who was drafted in to lead Paramount’s lucrative juggernaut two years ago as Cade Yeager.
Per Twitter:
Lieutenant Colonel Lennox reporting for duty. Let’s do this. #transformers
https://t.co/wibnE21xgW— Josh Duhamel (@joshduhamel) May 17, 2016
Appearing across Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen and 2011’s widely derided Dark of the Moon, Duhamel anchored the military element of Bay’s series as William “Wild Bill” Lennox, striking up a screen partnership with Tyrese Gibson, Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox.
Whether Duhamel’s somewhat surprising return to the franchise will pave the way for members of the original trilogy to make the transition to Paramount’s rebooted series remains to be seen – Tyrese Gibson is certainly drumming up excitement via Instagram – but it ought to make for a more interesting casting process going into The Last Knight nonetheless.
Transformers: The Last Knight is due to land on June 17, 2016, heralding the start of a reinvigorated franchise at Paramount with Transformers 6 – rumored to be a Bumblebee spinoff – slated for June 8, 2018 followed by another TF sequel on June 28, 2019.