Mark Wahlberg has proven through the years that one can shake a youthful image–such as a buff white rapper–and become a successful actor with several high-profile film credits under his name. Now it looks like he’s going to add a big-budget action flick to his resume, despite the director’s original denials.

Michael Bay, who worked with Wahlberg on the upcoming film “Pain And Gain”, wrote on his blog on Halloween that the rumors of the actor taking a part in the new “Transformers” movie were false, saying that the script was being developed and ideas were being thrown around, but nothing was definite. He did, however, hint that the rumors may have actually put Wahlberg in his mind during development.

I squashed a rumor that was on the internet last week. It was about Mark Walhberg. Mark was rumored to be staring in Transformers 4. We are working on another movie together, not T4. I had such a great time working with Mark on Pain and Gain, and he gave such a great performance – well let’s say that very internet chatter gave me some ideas. We are at the inception of our story process right now on T4. Let’s say some ideas are gaining traction with me and my writer – so I’m here to say thanks internet chatter.

Now, he’s released a statement confirming what the web seems to have already known.

“Mark is awesome,” Bay said. “We had a blast working on ‘Pain and Gain’ and I’m so fired up to be back working with him. An actor of his caliber is the perfect guy to re-invigorate the franchise and carry on the Transformers’ legacy.”

Fans will have a while to wait, though; the film doesn’t go into production until the spring, and a release date will be sometime in 2014–probably summer.