Bumblebee Director Hints Discuss Charlie Splitting, Possible Return

In an interview with Comicbook.com, Bumblebee director Travis Knight explain the end of Bumblebee (spoilers!) when Bumblebee and Charlie went their separate ways. The story beat seemed a bit sudden and left some fans confused but as Knight says, it has to be with telling a complete story. He also indicated the character could return if the sequel story warrants it.

"I'm sure a creative mind could come up with a way to bring them back together, but it was always incredibly important to me that this film, even though it sits within a larger context of mythology and comics and cartoons and films, that this film be self contained that it lives on its own," Knight told ComicBook.com. "That it had a beginning, it had a middle and an end and it had proper resolution. And so as I was charting the relationship between these two character there was no other way for it to end. It had to end with them parting. It's about one of those relationships, one of those life changing relationships that where someone comes into your orbit and fundamentally changes your trajectory moving forward. And it was, he has his mission to do and he has to go do it and she has her life and she has to live and she has to go live it. And they change each others lives, but then they had to part and that was the story that I was telling. And so even though I love seeing them together, and I was sad when they had to part as well. It was critical for what this movie was."

Bumblebee Director Breaks Down Cybertron Battle Characters

In a piece from Entertainment Weekly, Bumblebee director Travis Knight provided input on the character designs and decisions made for the opening battle sequence on Cybertron. In it he discusses most of the characters, a few Easter Eggs, and how much Transformers: The Movie influenced certain moments. Click here to read. Bumblebee is now available on Blu-ray and DVD: Amazon | Best Buy (also exclusive Steelbook version) | Target | Wal-Mart

Example regarding Ravage: “I talked to my visual effects producer who said, ‘Okay, we have to lose this… and this … oh, and they want us to lose the doggy.’ And I go ‘The doggy? What doggy?’ And he goes, ‘Well, Ravage.’ And I go, ‘They think Ravage is a doggy?’”

Transformers 6 Will Not Continue Last Knight's Storyline

Transformers movie franchise producer continues to make the rounds promoting Pet Semetary. In an interview with Slashfilm, he answers two questions about Transformers along with stuff about Meg, Snake Eyes and more which you can read here. In regards to Transformers the first thing to understand is he clearly doesn't know what "reboot" and "continuity" is but Bumblebee clearly maintained Bay-verse continuity and was not a reboot. This led to hope that Transformers 6 may continue the Unicron plot. Based on the below, that will not be the case. It doesn't mean TF6 wouldn't maintain the movie continuity, it would just ignore or hand wave away that particular plot point.

For the next Transformers are you looking for new directors or hoping you can still make Michael Bay an offer?
I think Bay has made it really clear that he loved what he did and he’s not doing anymore. So I think the answer is we’re writing a script. At that point, once we get script we have a strong belief in, then we’ll begin to debate that. Michael’s made it really clear that he didn’t want to do it. I don’t blame him. He spent a hell of a lot, a decade of his life, shooting them.

Are you developing a script that picks up where The Last Knight left off?
No.

Art of Bumblebee From ILM

Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) has posted a interesting slide show that depicts the art work created during pre-production of Bumblebee. The art from Stephen Zavala, Alex Jaeger, and Alexander Gustaveson provides some details about the line of thinking and sources of inspiration for the art (like the 1986 movie). Its actually pretty interesting and worth checking out. To view the whole slideshow, click here.

How Bumblebee Should Have Ended

Here is an amusing video in cartoon form that has fun with some of the plot holes in the Bumblebee.

80s Style Trailer for Bumblebee Home Video Release

While the VHS tape is not actually available for purchase, Paramount has provided a friendly reminder that Bumblebee is now out in stores on Blu-ray and DVD. To fit the movie's 1987 setting, they made an 80s style trailer complete with limited edition VHS tape release of the film that went out to various sites. I got one, as the pic shows, but have yet to dig out my very year old VCR to see if works.

The trailer itself does an excellent job of mimicking the old style trailers complete with meh music and voice over explanations. They laid the screen distortions a touch thick but all those things would happen while watching worn out VHS tapes (from renting) or using old VCRs. If reading this and don't know what VHS and VCRs are ask your parents as they will likely enjoy the walk down memory lane or just be relieved at the crisp clarity that Blu-ray and 4K brings us now. Click here for review and details on the release, links to purchase below.

Links to buy: Amazon | Best Buy (also exclusive Steelbook version) | Target | Wal-Mart

Blu-Ray Bumblebee Review, Out Tuesday

Tomorrow is the physical release of Bumblebee on Blu-ray and DVD. You can currently buy a digital copy of the movie but personally I tend to go for the physical copy as get the higher quality version of the film on disc AND get the digital version for the same price. The release comes in the usual Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy or Blu-ray Ultra 4k + Blu-ray + Digital or just DVD versions. To no surprise, the transfer to Blu-Ray remains crisp with Dolby Atmos (for english) and 5.1 Dolby in other languages. While the Blu-ray did download a few commercials, at least what I saw was Transformers related including a BotBots commercial.

Sadly the special features do not include a commentary track but does include a pretty good behind the scenes videos that actually did something remarkable - it was not entirely about trying to sell you the movie. Never understood special features that sell you the movie that you clearly already bought in on or would not be watching the special features. The first section is the "Sector 7 Archive" which is less archive and more "huh?". The is a quick intro from John Cena as Agent Burns welcoming "you" as a new recruit to Sector 7. After that is the motion comic for "Sector 7 Adventures: The Battle of Half Dome" that is set after the movie. There might be a physical copy of the comic included with your purchase but if not this has you covered with panels getting small animations as voice over tells the story of an attack by Soundwave on a Sector 7 convoy when Agent Simmons is forced to take command.

Final Bumblebee Box Office Numbers

Now that the film has been out for a few weeks in Japan and about to be released on home video tomorrow in the States, seems like a good time to provide a final tally on the box office of Bumblebee. As reported by Box Office Mojo:

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $127,195,589 27.3%
+ Foreign: $338,000,000 72.7%
= Worldwide: $465,195,589

Overall not bad but also continued signs that more and more the choices made for blockbuster films are going to be dictated by that 70%+ in overseas dollars then whatever US audiences may want. The $465 million total is not puff out your chest, greenlight all the sequels level dollars, but its enough to keep the movie franchise alive and build on as Paramount and Hasbro navigate a future without the Michael Bay approach to the franchise. That Bay-less future aided their profit margins as saved on the cost of Bay's huge paycheck, back end points and his cut of the merchandising sales. Between those savings and tax credits, the film landed in the profitable category probably by around $200 million or so and that doesn't include whatever was made in selling toys, shirts, and all the other stuff that comes with a movie release.

In short, its no surprise Paramount declared the movie profitable and started exploring a seuqel while also not exactly moving full steam ahead as it use to be the next sequel would have been in early pre-production by now. Instead slow and cautious seems to be the approach now as they do not want to blow that profit by losing it all on a sequel that doesn't land. As a result I suspect there will be no new Transformers film in theaters until late 2021 or mid 2022. The era of a movie every other year is sadly done, not really because of Bay but because of the thinking is that if Star Wars couldn't handle that output, no other franchise could either (Marvel disagrees of course). Congrats to the cast and crew of Bumblebee for a successful and entertaining movie.