Budget, New Still, and Wahlberg, Cullen Talk Transformers: Age of Extinction

In two brief interviews, Transformers: Age of Extinction stars talk a little bit about the film. Very little, but still get a great Optimus Prime still out of it. In the interview with Hero Complex just comments on returning for picks-up while the article reveals the budget of the film in the $165 million range (1st time seen report on the budget). USA Today has an article on top 10 iconic movie characters that posted this new still (left) along with a comment from Peter Cullen (voice of Optimus Prime).

Mark Wahlberg
“Some people think of this as a sequel,” he said. “We thought of it more as a stand-alone thing. I’ve never done a sequel.”

“I had to come back for some pick-up shots,” Wahlberg recalled. “So when Bay saw me, he freaked. He was used to seeing me on the healthier side. But here I am skinny with long, stringy hair. He was like, ‘You can’t look like that!’”

Peter Cullen
"He is exactly who he was from the very original concept," Cullen says of Prime. "I've always felt a hero should have the qualities that are inspiring and helpful and fatherly and at the same time (be) courageous. I don't see those character traits changing at all."

Transformers is more than a lifetime gig as a transforming big rig for Cullen. It's also a family affair: His son Clay is a stuntman on Age of Extinction, and Cullen's brother Larry, a Marine who served in the Vietnam War and died in 2011, continues to be the inspirational foundation for Optimus' steady and strong tone.

"Though Larry's gone," Peter Cullen says, "he lives on in my mind as Optimus Prime because he was my hero."