‘Bumblebee’ Will Be A Lower Cost ‘Transformers’ Spin-Off
Last week Paramountunveiledits plans to make a newTransformersmovie every year, copying Disney’s plans for the Star Wars films.Transformers 5is set for release inJune 2017, to be followed by a film in the two following summers. It was reported that the second of those three films would be a spinoff featuringBumblebee, again copying Disney’s plans for a spin-off film every other year sandwiched in-between two continuing franchise movies. And now we’ve learned that the Bumblebee spin-off film will be a lower budget film. Find out the details, after the jump.
The details were revealed in an interview with Paramount Pictures chairman and CEOBrad GreyinThe Hollywood Reporter:
There are characters in the Transformers universe that can be and should be made into their own movies. We will make the first movie with Michael and go right into a Bumblebee movie, which will be at a lower cost.
So it sounds like the Bumblebee movie will be more of a self-contained story, probably harkening back to a boy and his car from the original Michael Bay film, but adding the epic world-at-stakes consequences. And that’s a good thing, as I think audiences are getting tired of this kind of thing — I know I certainly am. And films likeDeadpoolcould suggest audiences are more interested in action films with personal consequences rather than the end-of-the-world kind.
Again, this is just my reading of it. It also seems that Michael Bay is only committed to directingTransformers 5, due out on onJune 23rd, 2017. The Bumblebee movie arrivesJune 8th, 2018.
The trade article also seems to believe that the third film, set for release onJune 28th, 2019, will also be a standalone spin-off movie and not a Transformers franchise sequel as originally reported.
The article also has another quote from Grey saying that they’ve “brought in a pretty strong writing staff run byAkiva Goldsman, and they have put together eight or nine interesting stories.” He added, “So, between that group and Steven Spielberg’s guidance on a story level, these characters are a big business for us to pursue.”
What could the second Transformers spin-off film be about? The easiest guess is that it could be an Optimus Prime movie, considering he’s the leader of the Autobots. But my guess is that Prime is going to be to the Transformers franchise films the same way the Skywalker family is to the Star Wars Saga films, and thus won’t be a big part of the spin-off stories.
The Bumblebee spinoff is of course the first steps toward expanding theTransformersseries into aMarvel-style shared universe. Rumors of a possible Bumblebee moviebegan to circulate last summerwhen Hasbro CEOBrian Goldnersuggested, “We could see stories told around Bumblebee and other characters.”
