Whether or not Michael Bay ends up directing Transformers 5, high-concept sci-fi vehicles are clearly still a part of his future. He's currently in the process of setting up Cosmic Motors at Warner Bros., a film based on Daniel Simon's book of lavish concept art. Kyle Ward, who wrote Machete Kills and the new Hitman movie Agent 47, has been tasked with creating the screenplay.
Ward will also need to come up with a narrative on which to hang it, since Cosmic Motors in book form is more about concept than story. Simon has worked as a car designer for Lamborghini and Bugatti, as well as on projects like Tron: Uprising, Captain America: The First Avenger and Oblivion. His book imagines "spaceships, pods, race cars, giant trains, warships and balloons from various planets of the Galaxion system... from concept to completion" via sketches and 3D modelling.
There's already a universe in place: the text alongside the pictures alludes to racing syndicates, organised crime, and disasters happening during test flights, and the images show evironments from streets to swamplands to ice plateaus. There are also potential characters in pilots and inventors like the Redua brothers and the Alfred & Dietmer Engineering Company. Ward has the ingredients: he now has to turn them into something delicious.
There's no director attached yet, but with Bay involved we might infer the potential for some explode-y crash carnage. There's no start date either, but if you want to know more, Cosmic Motors is published by Titan Books.