Ignoring anything and everything that director Michael Bay may have said about Transformers 2 not being the middle chapter of anything, Paramount announced yesterday that Transformers 3 will be released on July 1st, 2011.

That doesn't mean that Michael Bay was lying, mind you; he's not signed any deal to be involved with the third movie in the series, which also currently lacks the involvement of any stars or a writer. The announcement was made, according to insiders, in response to the quickly-filling 2011 calendar, which already has release dates for Spider-Man 4, Thor and Captain America because Marvel movies like to plan ahead. Making the announcement also shows the amount of faith that the studio has in Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen, which doesn't even open until June 24th this year... although it does provide the potential spoiler that at least one Transformer - and presumably, the Earth - will survive the second installment. Unless the third film is a prequel, of course...

'Transformers 3' gets a date [Variety]

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