Watch Your Back Optimus! Hot Rod Is Coming To 'Transformers: The Last Knight'

Longtime Transformers fans undoubtedly look back at 1986's awesome Transformers: The Movie as a high water mark for the franchise, and for good reason. It sums up everything that was great with the toy line and the cartoons, while also bringing a new generation of robots into the spotlight. One that became prominent during that film was Hot Rod, the young, hot-headed Autobot whose claim-to-fame was getting Optimus Prime killed. Oops. Will history repeat itself now that Hot Rod has been confirmed as part of Michael Bay's Transformers: The Last Knight?

Paramount Pictures has confirmed Hot Rod will be in Michael Bay's fifth Transformers movie, and of course he looks nothing like we remember.

That shouldn't be a surprise since Bay has hardly stuck to proper Transformers continuity, but we may see him acknowledge it in some way here. See, once Prime was killed it was Hot Rod who gained possession of the Autobot Matrix of Leadership and transformed into Rodimus Prime.  With Optimus off on Cybertron searching for the Quintessons and this possibly being his "last" battle, could we see Hot Rod take over as the new leader? 

With Bay moving on this would be a good time to start over fresh with a new Autobot leader.  Transformers: The Last Knight opens June June 23rd 2017.