Production is underway in Cuba for Transformers: The Last Knight, and there have already been a few shocks delivered by the fifth film in the franchise. Director Michael Bay recently revealed the new look for Megatron in the film and Anthony Hopkins (yes, that Anthony Hopkins) joined the picture as a cast member in an unknown role. Even Britain’s loneliest dog is getting in on the action.

The latest reveal from the film comes in the form of a Tweet from Bay, showcasing the new look for the silent Autobot Bumblebee. Check it out below:

As described in the Tweet, the new model is a custom-built Camaro from the good folks over at General Motors. This design looks a lot sleeker than Bumblebee’s previous forms. Now the question is if this will change the way he looks as a robot; that’s usually what it means when the car form gets a redesign. Bumblebee and Optimus Prime were both redesigned for Transformers: Age of Extinction, so it’s surprising that they are looking to change things up again so soon after the last film. I suppose Transformers updating their car body is like a human getting a haircut; sometimes you just have to change it up.
 
Bumblebee will be getting his own spinoff movie down the road, so it makes sense that he’s the first Autobot to be fully revealed for The Last Knight. Plus, he’s one of the only characters in the franchise to be in every single movie, so it’d be weird if he were absent in this one.
 
If Bumblebee is getting a redesign, then are the other Autobots going through a change as well? We don’t know what robot characters will be returning for the fifth film other than Optimus, Megatron, and Bumblebee, so it’s anyone’s guess at this point. The Transformers movies have a habit of making the Autobot and Decepticon side characters really forgettable, so we could be looking at a new cast of alien robots. Age of Extinction did a decent job of making more unique Transformers, in both design and personality, but there probably wouldn’t be too many complaints from fans if we saw some new additions to the franchise.
 
Little is known about Transformers: The Last Knight at the moment, but it will have something to do with Optimus Prime’s search for the creators of his race and Megatron is back as a villain (duh). Michael Bay returns to direct for possibly the final time, with a human cast consisting of Mark Wahlberg, Josh Duhamel, and Isabela Moner. 

Transformers: The Last Knight is scheduled to release in theaters almost a year from now on June 23, 2017.

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"Transformers: The Last Knight" has a furry new cast member.

Director Michael Bay announced that Freya, dubbed "Britain's loneliest dog" by the Mirror, would have a role in the fifth "Transformers" film.

Freya, a Staffordshire bull terrier cross, suffers from epilepsy and has been living at Freshfields Animal Rescue for six years. She was taken in as a six-month-old stray and has been rejected by 18,000 possible owners over the years.

Bay said that if she was unable to find a home in Britain, he would adopt her himself, and give her a part in the next "Transformers" film.

Since Freya has gotten media attention, Freshfields Animal Rescue said that they have received interest from people around the world.

Looks like this lonely dog won't be lonely for much longer.

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Three years before he declared his run for the presidency, Donald Trump had his eyes set on another radically ambitious personal venture — the developement of an 800-acre studio in Hampstead, Florida, which "would have been the largest film and TV production campus in America," according to The Hollywood Reporter.  

The publication details how Trump came to the idea of constructing the studio in April 2012, through his friend Joe Martinez, "a former cop and background actor... who happened to be running for mayor of Miami." Martinez proposed that Trump help him revisit an abandoned 10-year-old plan to convert an airplane hangar in Florida into a small film studio.

Trump agreed to look into it — under his own conditions.

"But Trump, being Trump, thought Martinez should think bigger," THR writes. "Instead of merely turning an old airplane hangar into a rinky-dink studio, Trump envisioned an entire studio city, built on 800 acres of undeveloped, government-owned land in Homestead — a rural, economically depressed part of Miami-Dade that still was recovering from Hurricane Andrew two decades earlier."

Trump then contracted New York architect John Fotiadis to develop renderings for the enormous Trump World Studios campus, which would have included "15 backlots, multiple sound studios ranging in size from 25,000 to 250,000 square feet (for a total of 1 million square feet of indoor space,) and even a housing complex for employees." (Fotiadis's studio blueprints can be seen in the THR article.)

As their plans started to come closer to fruition in the following months, however, Trump and his contractors then hit a series of road blocks. His team reportedly had trouble acquiring the contiguous land necessary to build the whole campus, as some properties were already purchased by other entities or already in use by the US government. 

Despite recieving a particularly memorable bit of assurance from director Michael Bay — "He told me he could have shot 'Transformers' [at Trump World Studios] if it were available,"Martinez said— the barriers to progress soon became unassailable. Martinez lost his run for mayor of Miami to a candidate who openly opposed Trump World Studios, and the studio's proposed location happened to be next to a US Air Force Reserve base, where the taking off of military jets would have made for less-than-ideal filming conditions.

"I actually said, 'Can you move the Air Force base?'" Trump admitted, according to THR.

But by November 2012, the Air Force still held its ground, and Trump's lofty project "was officially dead." 

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There’s a new Transformers movie in the works, and that means a whole host of new cars and trucks set to play the alternate modes for all the giant fighting robots.

The new movie, which is titled Transformers: The Last Knight and due for release June 23, 2017, is once again being directed by Michael Bay.

He’s now revealed the car that will serve as the alternate mode for popular Autobot Bumblebee: a sixth-generation Chevrolet Camaro (an earlier release from Bay showed what appears to be an injured Optimus Prime).

But this is no ordinary Camaro. In addition to Bumblebee’s signature yellow paint, the car is wearing a new body kit with some pronounced spoilers. There’s also the familiar Autobot logo on its flanks.  

Note, if you particularly like this Camaro, there’s a chance it may eventually be offered up for sale. Recently, a 1992 Peterbilt 379 truck and 1967 Chevrolet Camaro that previously served as alternate modes for Optimus and Bumblebee, respectively, were sold at auction.

Not much is known about the new movie though we can confirm it will once again star Mark Wahlberg, who made his debut in the Transformers world in the previous movie, Transformers: Age of Extinction. Josh Duhamel will also reprise his role as William Lennox from the first three movies. It’s also thought legendary actor Anthony Hopkins will be part of the crew.

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There's no good reason to care about the next Transformers movie. It has a ridiculous name, "Transformers: The Last Knight." It's directed by Michael Bay. And it's sure to include all kinds of incomprehensible CGI mayhem, nonsensical subplots, and gibberish about the alignment of constellations.

But the movie is being made. And Bay has something new to offer: a cute Transformer.

Enter Squeeks (pictured above). Notice something strange about him (her?): he's kind of cute. The character takes a note from "Despicable Me." Squeeks is the Minion of the Transformers franchise.

Transformers, usually, are not cute, or even attractive. They're burly fighting machines. Optimus Prime may be the great hope to save the galaxy from darkness, or whatever, but he isn't exactly Dwayne Johnson. Bumblebee may look cool, but his body proportions are all weird. Megatron doesn't even have a clearly defined face.

Squeeks, with his big headlight eyes and goofy helmet, is a departure.

And he signifies something larger: the Minionization of movies.

Since "Despicable Me" introduced the Minions way back in 2010, the critters have been a boon for movie studios. They're small and kids love them. Perhaps most importantly, kids love toy versions of them. "Minions" toys made 2015 a record year for the toy industry. The product licensing deals are more valuable than the movies themselves.

Transformers is perhaps the most crassly commercial movie franchise to have ever existed, so it makes sense that they'd make a cute, Minion-y character. The movie's internal universe is so incomprehensibly large because it needs to find space for all the Bud Light and Apple product placement.

The franchise already produces toys that tween boys love. With cutesy Squeeks, they broaden their toy-collecting demographic. 

Transformers isn't the only franchise to Minionize itself. The Minion effect is everywhere.

For the new sequel "Alice Through the Looking Glass," Disney created the Minutes. They're another toy opportunity. The creatures do not appear in the original book. They're basically steampunk Minions. 

Troy Saliba, the animation supervisor for the movie, compared Minutes to Minions himself, telling Entertainment Weekly, "'Minions' is a word that we generally try to avoid ... but we were leaning on body-language comedians like Mr. Bean and Buster Keaton."

Unfortunately, they lacked the appeal of the original Minions, and "Through the Looking Glass" was an enormous flop.

Then there are the penguins of the "Madagascar" franchise. They're cute characters that get into mischief, and are surprisingly effective at solving plot problems when they need to. Unlike the Minions, though, they are capable of completing full sentences.

The penguins started as a modest spin-off. They starred in their own well-received television series "The Penguins of Madagascar," which lasted a few seasons. But after the success of "Despicable Me," DreamWorks Animation announced they were getting their own movie, and "Penguins of Madagascar" hit the screen in 2014.

The panda cubs of "Kung Fu Panda 3" were prone to malapropisms and help Po beat the bad guys. They're basically fuzzy black-and-white Minions. And the entire "Angry Birds" movie was based on a game that led to plushy merchandise, and was an effective way to generate even more toy sales. The Trolls movie probably exists along the same lines.

Michael Bay and Minion creator Pierre Coffin are just following the path of George Lucas, who introduced the Ewoks to "Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi." And like Ewoks, the cute swarms are usually bad for the movies. They are distracting, pesky, and only occasionally entertaining. The "Transformers" franchise, which is already as bad as it gets, may find a cute Transformer helpful. But for the movies as a whole, they're excruciating.

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Get ready for more Transformers movies. A lot more.

Four more films based on the Hasbro toys are in the works for the next decade, bringing the total number of Transformers movies to eight.

Hasbro chief content officer and executive vice president Stephen Davis confirmed "Transformers" 5, 6, 7, and 8 during a keynote at MIPJunior, the annual showcase for kids programming.

"Well, you're going to see a new 'Transformers' movie coming from Hasbro and Paramount and Michael Bay, and our other partners," said Davis. "In fact, we just finished, which some of you may have read, just an incredible experience. We decided we wanted to plot out the next 10 years of the Transformers franchise, and so we got together in a room over a three-month period of time."

Davis said they worked with nine writers who were led by Akiva Goldsman ("A Beautiful Mind").

"They plotted out the next ten years of 'Transformers,'" continued Davis. "Similarly, we're doing the same in television and in digital. So stay tuned, 'Transformers 5' is on it's way," Davis paused before adding, "... and six and seven, and eight.”

This is a no brainer for Hasbro and Paramount.

Despite poor critical reviews— 2014's "Transformers: Age of Extinction" sits at 18% on Rotten Tomatoes — the movies are big money earners at the box office, especially internationally.

Take a look:

You can watch the entire Hasbro keynote below with Davis.

The "Transformers" news starts at 13:30.

(h/t TFW2005)

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If you grew up watching "Transformers," your time has come. A Turkish company by the name of "Letrons" has built a 1:1 scale Transformer using a BMW. 

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Before the first official trailer drops for "Transformers: The Last Night" Monday, fans got their first look at next year's film in the form of a one-minute production video.

The official "Transformers" Facebook page posted the video, which celebrates the wrapping up of the movie's production. The fifth entry in Michael Bay's franchise about alien robots blasts its way into theaters on June 23, 2017.

Here's what we noticed in the production video.

Here's Mark Whalberg as Cade Yeagar the "inventor" at the heart of the "Transformers" movies ever since Shia LaBeouf left the franchise.

Michael Bay returned to direct "Transformers: The Last Knight."

Anthony Hopkins, fresh off his role in "Westworld," is joining the franchise for the first time.

The first trailer for "Transformers: The Last Knight," the fifth entry in Michael Bay's alien robot franchise, is finally here.

We last left Optimus Prime (a Transformer, voiced by Peter Cullen), Cade Yeager (Mark Whalberg), and the rest of the gang in "Transformers: Age of Extinction," where dinosaur Transformers (Dinobots) were introduced to the series. At the end of the movie, Optimus flew into space to battle the "Creators," who seem to be bigger robot aliens that caused havoc on Earth. Optimus is back, but for now it doesn't look like he's with the good guys.

This time around, a few new actors will join the squad including Tyrese and Sir Anthony Hopkins.

"Transformers: The Last Knight" will be in theaters on June 23, 2017.

Watch the trailer below:

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This walking robot looks like it just walked out of Transformers. The Method-2 bipedal robot is a prototype from Korean company Hancook Mirae Technology. It can be piloted from aboard or remotely and stand 13 feet tall. The price on these robots? A cool $8.3 million.

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The Super Bowl is coming Sunday, February 5 and while many across the country are getting ready for the big game, it will also be a big night for movies.

Movie studios take the opportunity to unveil new trailers for some of the year's most anticipated hits and Paramount just unveiled its Super Bowl spot for the next "Transformers" movie.

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Josh Duhamel, and Sir Anthony Hopkins, the fifth movie in the Michael Bay franchise will have humans fighting against some of their old Transformer friends, including Optimus Prime. 

Check out the Super Bowl trailer now below:

An extended, nearly minute-long trailer for the trailer popped up online Sunday before the big game. You can check that out below:

Here's the official synopsis from Paramount:

The Last Knight shatters the core myths of the Transformers franchise, and redefines what it means to be a hero. Humans and Transformers are at war, Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future lies buried in the secrets of the past, in the hidden history of Transformers on Earth. Saving our world falls upon the shoulders of an unlikely alliance: Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg); Bumblebee; an English Lord (Sir Anthony Hopkins); and an Oxford Professor (Laura Haddock).

There comes a moment in everyone’s life when we are called upon to make a difference. In Transformers: The Last Knight, the hunted will become heroes. Heroes will become villains. Only one world will survive: theirs, or ours.

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A new "Transformers" movie is coming this summer. This time, the film will pit Optimus Prime against his old friends.

The extended spot for "Transformers: The Last Knight," which aired during the Super Bowl, shows Prime going up against fan favorite Bumblebee. 

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Josh Duhamel, and Sir Anthony Hopkins, the fifth movie in the Michael Bay franchise will have humans fighting against Prime and other Transformers. "Transformers: The Last Knight" will be in theaters June 23.

Check out the Super Bowl trailer below:

Here's the official synopsis from Paramount:

The Last Knight shatters the core myths of the Transformers franchise, and redefines what it means to be a hero. Humans and Transformers are at war, Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future lies buried in the secrets of the past, in the hidden history of Transformers on Earth. Saving our world falls upon the shoulders of an unlikely alliance: Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg); Bumblebee; an English Lord (Sir Anthony Hopkins); and an Oxford Professor (Laura Haddock).

There comes a moment in everyone’s life when we are called upon to make a difference. In Transformers: The Last Knight, the hunted will become heroes. Heroes will become villains. Only one world will survive: theirs, or ours.

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In case you've lost count, we're headed into the fifth movie in Paramount's Transformers franchise with "Transformers: The Last Knight," opening in theaters in June.

Michael Bay has directed all the movies so far and it's possible this will be his last one — at least for a little while.

But he revealed to MTV at CinemaCon that 14(!) future Transformers movies have already been written.

"There’s good stuff," he said, adding that in the future he may want to get back in on the franchise. "I would like to do one of them, though."

After "The Last Knight," which stars Mark Wahlberg — who came onto the franchise in 2014's "Transformers: Age of Extinction"— the movies will get their first spin-off, which will focus on Bumblebee and will be more kid-friendly, according to Bay. The movie will be out in 2018 and will be directed by Travis Knight ("Kubo and the Two Strings").

So it sounds like the franchise is not slowing down. The movies, including the 1986 animated feature, "Transformers: The Movie," have collectively earned a worldwide gross close to $4 billion.

Watch Bay's comments below:

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This transforming SUV raises and lowers to get around traffic. Unfortunately, the Hum Rider isn't something you can buy. It was created by Verizon as marketing for their Hum module. Anyone caught in traffic would love this feature, though. Watch this car transform and drive over traffic.

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The INSIDER Summary:

• Josh Duhamel is reprising his role in the fifth "Transformers" movie after sitting out the last film.
• Duhamel teases the next film will be "bigger and badder" than the previous movies.
• His character is working with a team to destroy all Transformers — good and bad.
• He hints his character may have a slightly different agenda.

When the next Transformers movie, "The Last Knight," comes to theaters, audiences will be reunited with a familiar face from the first few films — but we're not talking about Shia LeBeouf.

After sitting out the last film, 2014's "Age of Extinction," Josh Duhamel will reprise his role as William Lennox, a Colonel who aligned himself with the Autobots (the good Transformers) to save the world time and time again. It came as a surprise for Duhamel, who never thought he'd be returning for a fifth Transformers movie. 

"I thought I was done. I thought I'd done my three movies. I was grateful for the experience and I had moved on from it," Duhamel recently told INSIDER after he was recently named celebrity ambassador for the Esurance MLB All-Star Game Ballot. 

That changed when Duhamel received a call asking if he would be around last summer and would like to come back on for another film. The answer? An obvious yes.

"I think they [Paramount] kind of just want to reboot it," said Duhamel, who, despite what critics may say about the films, has a lot of fun filming them.

"You just get to see things on these movie sets that you don't see anywhere else," he continued. "The amount of toys that Michael Bay has to make movies is unbelievable."

This time around, Duhamel tells INSIDER Lennox won't be working for N.E.S.T., the task force set up to fight Decepticons with the help of Autobots.

"I'm a part of what they call TRF. It's a group that's tasked with eliminating all Transformers — good or bad — from the planet," he said. "There's been an uproar around the world that they're [the Transformers] going to take over."

Despite the bots getting a bad rep, Duhamel says his character's not buying it since Lennox worked alongside some of the Transformers, previously. And, really, who could consider Bumblebee a bad guy?

 
"Well, I know better and I'm working with this group, at least covertly, to eliminate them knowing that that's really not what I want to do. I'm sort of conflicted about the whole thing," he said.

Duhamel didn't want to spoil the entire movie for us and tell us what his character will ultimately end up doing (we're guessing helping out the Autobots is in his agenda), but he says there's a lot more going on in the movie as well. 

"The beauty of the story is that it really gets into the history, the mythology, the part they [The Transformers] played in human history," Duhamel said. "They've been around much longer than anybody ever thought, so it explains a lot of things that certain people in history were able to do or certain phenomenon."

It looks like we'll learn more about their role in history from Sir Anthony Hopkins, who was cast as a historian well-versed in the bots' time on Earth.

"It's bigger and badder than anything we've ever done yet, so I'm hoping people love it," he added.  

"Transformers: The Last Knight" is in theaters June 21. 

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With “Transformers: The Last Knight” (opening in theaters on Wednesday), we have arrived at the fifth movie in the series based on the legendary Hasbro toys — perhaps the franchise that’s most in on the joke that everything on the screen is just insane.

Director Michael Bay’s final time (or so he says) at the helm of the franchise is filled with a lot of fun and bizarre moments to counter the serious tone of the story, which includes Optimus Prime turning evil and the possibility that the world will come to an end.

But not even the unusual sight of Anthony Hopkins acting across a Transformer is worth a summer movie with a running time of over two hours, and that’s what you’ll have to go through if you decide to go see this movie. (But those who have watched the entire franchise, or many of Bay’s movies, know what they're getting into here.)

In “The Last Knight,” we are given a bit of a history lesson, Transformers-style. The machines have actually been coming to earth since the Dark Ages, fighting along equally mythical legends like Lancelot and the wizard Merlin. In fact, it’s Merlin (played delightfully by Stanley Tucci) who is given a staff by one of the Transformers that would give him the magic behind his sorcery.

But there was always a warning that someone evil would one day come to earth and take back the staff, which leads us to the present day.

Mark Wahlberg returns as Cade Yeager, the struggling inventor who has befriended the Autobots. Since the last movie, “Transformers: Age of Extinction,” Transformers are appearing on earth more frequently and the humans have turned against them all — Autobots and Decepticons.

Yeager keeps the Autobots hidden in a junkyard hoping to hold out until Optimus Prime returns to lead them again.

Prime has gone back to his home planet of Cybertron, but there he’s brainwashed by the evil Quintessa and ordered to return back to earth to retrieve the staff. While back on earth, astronomer Sir Edmond Burton (Hopkins), the keeper of the Transformers legacy with humans, recruits Yeager and Oxford professor Viviane Wembley (Laura Haddock) to find the Merlin staff and save the world.

If you understood any of that, congratulations, you are on the same wavelength as Michael Bay and his screenwriters.

As with most Bay movies, it’s the action and silly moments that are the most enjoyable. A highlight in “The Last Knight” is a Transformer doubling as Burton’s butler named Cogman who tries desperately to be dignified, though he can’t help being overcome by violent outbursts.

Some enjoyable Cogman scenes: When he randomly attacks Yeager, when he has road rage in the middle of a car chase (while Burton gives chasing Decepticons the middle finger), and when our heroes are in a submarine (yes, there are submarines in this movie) and Cogman catches fish for Yeager and Wembley and we watch as the machine beats the hell out of the fish before serving them.

Needless to say, this isn't a good Transformers movie to bring the kids to (lots of adult language, too).

Then there’s Bumblebee, who has always been the highlight of the franchise and doesn’t disappoint in this one (a spin-off movie for "B" is in the works).

The biggest gripe I have with the movie is simply that it’s way too long. It’s one of the better movies in the franchise, but why Bay feels he needs over two hours to tell these stories is puzzling.

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The INSIDER Summary:

• "Transformers: The Last Knight" is in theaters June 21.
• It's the fifth movie in the franchise.
• Despite the "Transformers" movies making less domestically at theaters, they continue to kill it overseas.
• The last two movies in the franchise have each grossed over $1 billion.

A fifth "Transformers" movie is in theaters this weekend and if you're among those who wonder how a fifth movie based on toys can possibly be made despite negative reviews for the series as a whole, there's a pretty simple answer. 

Paramount's not making these movies for domestic audiences anymore. These movies are made for international viewers. 

Just take a look at the box office grosses for the first four films:

But now, look at the breakdown of how much each of those four movies has made domestically versus internationally.

While there's an obvious downward trend in interest in the "Transformers" franchise in the states, it continues to make more money overseas.

"Transformers: Age of Extinction," the fourth installment in the series, grossed more than $320 million in China when it debuted in 2014. Unsurprisingly, the newest film, "The Last Knight" had its world premiere in China on June 13 and celebrated the franchise's 10th anniversary there. 

Meanwhile, the US premiere of "The Last Knight" was held June 20, one day before the film's release. US reviews were embargoed until late Tuesday evening. That shouldn't come as too much of a surprise either. Critic reviews for the previous "Transformers" movies have increasingly become lower as the series continued.

So far, early reviews for the new movie are fairly negative, but don't think that will stop it from being a monster hit. Forbes' Mark Hughes predicts that while it may not make as much as the last two films in the franchise, it will fare just fine overseas.

One thing's clear: Whatever you think about the Transformers' films, Paramount's not making these movies for the US anymore.

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Love him or hate him, director Michael Bay has spent the last two decades completely dominating the box office.

Though he’s a punching bag for critics, Bay’s movies — from the action-comedy “Bad Boys” to the thrilling “Armageddon” — have grossed over $2.1 billion at the United States box office in his career. Only Steven Spielberg has brought in more coin.

The divide between critics and audiences is most obvious with Bay’s “Transformers” movies. Though the highest-ranking of any of the movies on Rotten Tomatoes only has a 57% score ("Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen"), the franchise, entirely directed by Bay, has taken in over $3 billion worldwide. 

With Bay’s latest, “Transformers: The Last Knight” (currently in theaters), marking the final time he’ll helm a movie in the franchise (or so he says), we thought this would be a good time to look back on his profitable, yet underappreciated, career.

Here are all of the movies of Michael Bay, ranked from worst to best:

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13. “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” (2009)

Though most felt Bay and star Shia LaBeouf did an impressive job kicking off the franchise with 2007’s “Transformers,” the sequel didn’t give audiences hope that the movies would get any better. With a 19% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the sequel started the critical bashing of the franchise that continues to this day.

“Revenge of the Fallen” is best known for it marking the last time Megan Fox would appear in the movies. She was fired for saying in an interview that working with Bay is a “nightmare” and for comparing him to Hitler. 

12. “Pearl Harbor” (2001)

Having just come off of the blockbuster “Armageddon,” Bay could do no wrong in the eyes of Hollywood. And with that power he went and made a three-hour movie about Pearl Harbor. The problem was, it was awful.

Starring Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, and Kate Beckinsale, this epic may be cool to look at, but the story it tells is a complete bore.

11. “Transformers: Age of Extinction” (2014)

The beginning of the Mark Wahlberg era of the franchise, the film has little to enjoy and clocks in at a mind-numbing 2 hours and 45 minutes. But audiences didn’t seem to care — the movie took in over $1 billion worldwide. 

There are some big, expensive movies coming out this summer, including another Spider-Man reboot and the latest "Transformers," but enthusiasm for them among Americans is lacking.

According to a poll from our partner, MSN, people aren’t that excited for summer 2017’s biggest movies — and the one they’re most excited about might come as a surprise.

MSN polls its readers, and then uses machine learning to model how a representative sample of the United States would have responded, using big data, such as the Census. It's nearly as accurate as a traditional, scientific survey.

MSN asked its readers how interested they were in some of 2017’s biggest summer movies in two categories. Those break down into action movies (“Spider-man: Homecoming,” “Transformers: The Last Knight,” “War for the Planet of the Apes”) and kids' movies (“Despicable Me 3,” “The Emoji Movie,” “The Lego Ninjago Movie”).

The poll separated the MSN audience into groups depending on how often they go to the movies, ranging from never to once a week or more. Among everyone, 69% said none of the action movies sounded good, and 60% said none of the kids titles sounded good.

People are most excited for "Despicable Me 3." 51% of regular moviegoers are excited, and 21% of people who never go to the movies are excited, which is huge compared to their 1% interest in "The Emoji Movie."

The action movie people are most excited to see this summer is "Spider-Man: Homecoming," but excitement is low compared to "Despicable Me 3." Of regular moviegoers, 25% are excited about the reboot, and 28% of people who go to the movies a couple times a month are excited about it.

Of all the movies, people are least excited about "The Emoji Movie" and "Transformers: The Last Knight." The latter, as it happens, is already getting terrible reviews, though the four "Transformers" movies so far have made a total of about $4 billion worldwide.

The charts below show how interested (or uninterested) the MSN audience is in this summer’s biggest movies.

At the same time, movie theater attendance has been declining for years. From 2006 to 2015, movie theater attendance in North America has declined from 4.4 billion admissions to 3.8 billion. 

MSN's data shows the low level of interest in new movies could be due to streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, HBOGo, and iTunes, along with regular old TV. It's much easier (and cheaper) to wait until you can watch a movie from the comfort of your own couch. 

When asked if they would rather go to the movies or watch something at home, 78% of respondents said they would prefer to stay home. Only 15% said they would like to go out to the movie theater.

SEE ALSO: 35 movies coming out this summer that you need to see

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