Director Michael Bay officially confirmed that Mark Wahlberg will have the lead role in Transformers 4 on Friday. Shia LaBeouf, who starred in the franchise’s first three films, will not have a role in the film.

Wahlberg and Bay have recently worked together on the upcoming crime tale “Pain and Gain” and reportedly have a very good working relationship.

Bay also stated that Transformers 4 will be his last film in the franchise and will have a different (and likely darker) feel than the previous films that have been made. That’s pretty easy to see considering Wahlberg and LaBeouf have very different personalities and styles of acting.

This comes as a pretty big surprise, at least for me, considering the success the franchise has seen (I thought Transformers 3 was the best of the the films so far) and how well LaBeouf has done in the role of Sam Witwicky.

Bay will certainly have his work cut out for him as he tries to revamp the franchise and develop new relationships on screen.

The movie is scheduled for a June 27, 2014 release and also has a sleek new logo (which you can see above) based on the Decepticon insignia.

[Post taken from TheNosebleeds.com, Cosby Sweater’s little brother sports & entertainment site.]