Paramount has staked a claim on July 1st, 2011 by announcing it as the debut date for the third film in the Transformers franchise.  The second Transformers movie, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is set to bow this summer on June 24th. 

According to Variety, Paramount’s move is a pre-emptive strike aimed at staking out some prime summer movie real estate.  A number of films have already been announced for mid-summer 2011 including The First Avenger: Captain America from Marvel Studios on July 22nd (see “Marvel Retools Movie Schedule”).  Paramount, which distributes the Marvel Studios films, has also moved the release date for the Thor movie back from the recently-announced June 17th to May 20th, which should give the Transformers movie some breathing room and put some more distance between the 2011 Marvel Studios releases.

The tentative nature of Paramount’s announcement, and the importance of staking a claim to prime summer release dates, is underscored by the fact that director Michael Bay and franchise stars Shia LeBoeuf and Megan Fox have not yet signed on for the a third Transformers film.  However, if the second Transformers film enjoys anything close to the same kind of success as the first film, which earned more than $708 million worldwide, a third installment would appear to be inevitable.