Spec­u­lated as early as Decem­ber 2008, and more solidly in March this year, we heard a June/July 2011 release date for Trans­form­ers 3 was on the cards. How­ever, Michael Bay rebutted these remarks, sug­gest­ing he wanted a year off from mechan­i­cal beasts to work on some­thing a lit­tle different.

How­ever, Bay has now con­firmed via his blog that Trans­form­ers 3 will hit the­aters in July 2011. He also left a mes­sage for Megan Fox,

Well its offi­cial: We have a great Trans­form­ers 3 story. The release date is now July 1st 2011. Not 2012.

Today is Day One. This morn­ing started with an ILM meet­ing for five hours in San Fran­cisco. Cur­rently I’m fly­ing with writer Ehren Kruger to Rhode Island to talk to Has­bro about new characters.

P.S. Megan Fox, wel­come back. I promise no alien robots will harm you in any way dur­ing the pro­duc­tion of this motion pic­ture. Please con­sult your Physi­cian when work­ing under my direc­tion because some side effects can occur, such as mild dizzi­ness, intense nau­sea, sui­ci­dal ten­den­cies, depres­sion, minor chest hair growth, ran­dom inter­nal hem­or­rhag­ing and inabil­ity to sleep. As some direc­tors may be haz­ardous to your health, please con­sult your Doc­tor to deter­mine if this is right for you.

Pain and Gain is right after shoot­ing of Trans 3.