The Autobots and Decepticons are finally returning to theaters this summer when Transformers: Rise of the Beasts premieres on June 9. But beyond this, Paramount has even bigger plans for the franchise, including a new animated film from Toy Story 4 helmer Josh Cooley that was originally announced back in 2020. It’s been ages since the studio provided an update on the project. However, longtime Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura says the movie is still happening. And he even shared a handful of plot details during a recent sit-down with Collider.
Early reports suggested that Cooley’s film would be a prequel that takes place on the Transformers’ home planet of Cybertron, a location only briefly glimpsed in Paramount’s live-action Transformers movies. And according to di Bonaventura, this is still the plan. Fans will also see how the Cybertronians split into two separate factions led by Optimus Prime and Megatron. In other words, a good chunk of the film will examine how those characters went from being allies to mortal enemies.
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“This is something we were trying to do,” said di Bonaventura. “We debated a lot about it in live action, and it just was financially impossible to do, which is, the origin story of young Megatron and young Optimus. If you know the origin, they started as friends. And over time, things devolved for them and they ended up on two sides. So we’re telling the young Optimus and the young Megatron story. We really are telling the origin story of all Transformers, both what they were at the beginning of it, to how they grow, to how they grow apart.”
Di Bonaventura also teased how the film will trace the evolution of Cybertronian society in a manner similar to the destruction of Krypton in DC’s Superman comics, with many of the planet’s inhabitants questioning “how their society has gotten stratified, and how the common man doesn’t have the voice, entirely, that they want to have.” As for the younger versions of Megatron and Optimus Prime, we won’t be getting a traditional coming-of-age story. But we will see how the characters mature over time, which might take more than one film to explore.
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“We’re hoping that there is enough emotional construct to that, that would lead to a trilogy of it,” added di Bonaventura. “Because personally, I think there’s a natural trilogy. I’m not always looking to do multiple movies. But there’s a natural trilogy around their relationship. So, you’re going to see Cybertron in a way you’ve never seen it, that no one’s ever seen it before. Because we’re doing an animation, we’re allowed to really go all out. If you tried to make this live-action, it would probably be a billion-dollar movie or something.”
Ant-Man and the Wasp co-writers Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari were previously tasked with penning the script for the Cooley’s film. The movie’s title is rumored to be Transformers: A New Generation. Several industry trades ran with this title last December when announcing that Universal’s upcoming Twister sequel was slated to hit theaters on the same day: July 19, 2024. Regardless, Paramount has yet to confirm if this is the actual name.
Are you excited to see more of Cybertron in Paramount’s animated Transformers movie? Let us know in the comment section below!
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