Washington (US): The insanely popular 'Transformers' franchise is transforming into something beastly! Hollywood studio Paramount revealed that the seventh instalment of its hit franchise has been titled 'Transformers: Rise of the Beasts'. As per Variety, the announcement regarding the title of the upcoming movie was made by the studio during a virtual press event on Tuesday to celebrate the beginning of production.
The 'Transformers' movie franchise will take on the 'Beast Wars' storyline from the late 1990s in 'Transformers: Rise of the Beasts', producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura and director Steven Caple Jr. shared. Production is just starting on the feature, but Di Bonaventura and Caple still did reveal a fair amount about the forthcoming instalment. Similar to Travis Knight's 2018 film 'Bumblebee', which was set in 1987, the new film will be set in 1994, so as not to intersect with the five Transformers movies directed by Michael Bay (though those films weren't exactly sticklers for the laws of time and space, either).
Unlike 'Bumblebee', which Di Bonaventura said was deliberately designed to be a smaller, "more intimate" movie, 'Transformers: Rise of the Beasts' will be "a spectacle story ... in the tradition of the Bay films." The action will move to New York City and will incorporate two new human characters: Elena (Dominique Fishback), an artefact researcher who keeps having credit for her work taken by her boss; and Noah (Anthony Ramos), an ex-military electronics expert who lives with his family in Brooklyn.
The production will also shoot in Peru, including a rare opportunity to film at the ancient Incan ruins of Machu Picchu (a logistical nightmare that Caple said he and his production team are still working on). Bumblebee will return to 'Rise of the Beasts', but the film will revolve more around Optimus Prime (voiced once again by Peter Cullen), serving as a kind of origin story as he arrives on Earth for the first time and learns to become a leader. "I want to discover more about Optimus Prime, get underneath the surface -- get underneath the metal, if you would -- and explore who he is and his experience on Earth," said Caple.
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The filmmaker also revealed concept art of Prime's appearance for the film, which will more closely align with Prime's boxy look from the original animated series and toy line. Other classic Transformers characters who will appear in 'Rise of the Beasts' include Mirage (a.k.a. a Porsche 911) and Arcee (one of the only Transformers to be gendered female). Otherwise, the film will draw from the 'Beast Wars' animated series which focused on robots who transform themselves into animals as opposed to vehicles. As Caple explained, in the film, these transformers are "prehistoric animals that travelled through time and space, and we find them on Earth."