Producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura is here to clue us in about the future of the Transformers franchise. Bumblebee, the upcoming prequel/spin-off centered on the fan-favorite Autobot, has been extremely well-received by critics ahead of its release. Uncommon for the franchise up to this point. But what's next? We now have some idea, but just don't call it a reboot.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura has been working on the Transformers movies behind the scenes for years. While many seen Bumblebee as a reboot, and have been calling it a reboot, the producer has voiced his opinion on the matter, explaining that he doesn't see the future of the franchise as a reboot and that they're not going to avoid going big. Here's what he had to say about the next movie.

"Reboot, I always hate that word because for one, I'm not sure I really understand what it means. We are going to do another big Transformers movie. It is going to be different than the ones that we've done before."

While the next main entry in the series has been pulled from Paramount's schedule, the impending success of Bumblebee, and the franchise's history of bringing in big money at the box office, ensures that another movie is on the way. As far as any sort of course correction goes, given that last year's The Last Knight took a big dip in the quality (based on critical and fan reactions) and at the box office, Lorenzo Di Bonaventura sees it as more of an evolution.

"It's not like we look at the elements of what we did before and go, 'Well, let's not do this' or 'Let's not do that.' It's more about how do you evolve the experience for the fans. Let the fan have a new experience. When we did the first movie, at first there was a lot of pushback that we weren't doing it the way it was done before. My feeling was always that if we'd done it, you would've gone, 'Well, I've already seen it.' So how do you evolve things forward is I think the hardest thing because you've got to retain why people love it, but at the same time if you give them the same experience, they're going to be bored with it."

No doubt, the positive reception to Bumblebee will influence this next "big" Transformers movie. Previously, Michael Bay had helmed every single installment. But this time around, it's Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings) in the director's chair and, based on the early reactions, having some fresh blood helped out quite a bit. Lorenzo Di Bonaventura sees it as a lesson in tone.

"I think we've learned something in this movie about tone that I would think the next big Transformers movie is going to have. It's not like we're going to copy it but we've learned something. There's more freedom than I think we originally thought in terms of what we can do."

Hopefully, this is going to set the Transformers franchise in the direction that fans have been hoping it would go in for some time. While many were hoping that it would simply die following The Last Knight, money talks and Paramount isn't going to pump the brakes. But luckily, it sounds like they're at least going to do their best to make better movies in the future. Bumblebee arrives in theaters on December 21. This news was first reported by Slash Film.