More Transformers 5 Concept Art

If you are interested, ILM posted some new concept art from Transformers: The Last Knight with an emphasis on Quintessa, Drift, and Bulldog. I couldn't find it on their site but TFW2005 mirrored it.

Four More Join Bumblebee Movie Cast

The Bumblebee Movie adds four new cast mates to join Hailee Steinfeld and Jorge Lendeborg Jr in the 1985-ish set movie. Joining the film are Abby Quinn (~18yo, Landline), Gracie Dzienny (21, Zoo), Rachel Crow (~18yo, Home: Adventures of Tip & Oh), Jason Drucker (~11yo, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul). I guess Nickelodeon fans would recognize them but drawing nothing but blanks for me.

No details on the what roles anyone will be playing but since producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura compared the Bumblebee movie script to a John Hughes movie from the 1980s (aka rich white teenager love problems) only minus the "rich" part since Steinfeld is playing an after school mechanic. Since Paramount is being pointlessly secretive about character names and roles that leaves the door open for me to make random guesses based on how casting and story decisions where made for similar "John Hughes" type movies made in the 1980s to 1990s. So my guess on their roles is "annoying brother" (Drucker), "quirky best friend" (Crow), "normal but sarcastic friend" (Quinn), and "mean hot girl" she wants to be (Dzienny).

I actually have some good hopes for this movie. Bumblebee director Travis Knight's Kudo and the Two Strings was great and showed promise in telling a classic "old school" type story in a 21st century so as long as Christina Hodson's (Shut In) script is solid, there is nothing but potential here. The IDW comics especially have shown that under the right hands, the Transformers franchise can fit into pretty much any genre out there including possible romantic high school comedy. Its just a matter of story and execution which we will find out when the movie is released on June 8, 2018.

Transformers: The Last Knight Concept Art

Transformers: The Last Knight artist, along with long time Transformers franchise artist Josh Nizzi and A. Kozhanov, posted some of his concept art from the movie on his Facebook page. I am really digging his take on Bumblebee. Sadly his version was a non-starter as the Chevy partnership would prevent its use. Chevy would demand it look recognizable as a Camaro and specifically like one they may later sell to the public. Sometimes we forget that that for the car companies, the Transformers movies are really just long form car commercials. You can find the full gallery at TFW2005.com.

Jorge Lendeborg Jr Joins Bumblebee Movie

Paramount announced that Jorge Lendeborg Jr has joined the Bumblebee movie as the male lead. The new actor's only other major role was in Spider-Man: Homecoming as Jason (I don't even recall him in that movie so not sure if had a spoken line or not). The exact nature of the role is unknown but considering the franchise's history of inserting romance elements into a story that doesn't need them, I suspect he will play a love interest to Hailee Steinfeld's mechanic character. Other then being set in 1985, not a while lot else is known about the movie which will be directed by Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings).

Bumblebee Movie Scores $22 Million Credit

The LA Times is reporting that Transformers' Bumblebee movie scored a $22 million credit to film the entire movie in California. While the budget for the Bumblebee movie is currently unknown, its supposed to be "significantly" less then the Bay films (which avg. ~$200 million each) so my guess is around $120M or less. This kind of credit goes towards the cost of the film but not its reported "cost". So if the final budget is reported at say $100M then its true cost would be $78 based on this credit. Also keep in mind this is a tax credit, not a cut. A cut basically says "while you don't have to, here is X dollars back, pretty please with a cherry on top spend this money." A credit says "you must spend Y dollars here and we will give you back X dollars back." So its in Paramount's interest to maximize that money buy spending whatever minimum they committed to in California so if hear about them filming elsewhere be suspicious.

This credit should also have relieve some of the stress that the Bumblebee film will have to succeed after the perceived commercial "failure" of Transformers: The Dark Knight. While TF5's half billion take is great, Paramount was shooting for $1 billion and so it failed to meet expectations. On the other hand, that same take from the Bumblebee movie would probably be considered outstanding by the group of executives as their expectations for this film (due to its production costs) has been adjusted much lower. From a pure numbers perspective it doesn't make any sense but expectations about dollar amounts is basically how Wall Street runs as does Hollywood.

Transformers 5 Week Three Box Office

To no surprise Spider-Man: Homecoming took the number one slot worldwide with a very good box office weekend ($120M US, $140 I'tnl) so if Transformers: The Last Knight release had gone as planned it would have dropped to number two. Instead it was number five with $6.3M US and $18.1M internationally for a total worldwide take of $495M. Not helping was theater chains (at least in US) collectively deciding to drop the IMAX 3D showing of the movie and replace them with Spider-Man so your chance to see in that format is done after only two weeks. Considering the drops in screens, I can't help but wonder if the movie might leave theaters by the end of the month.

Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $118,916,760 24.0%
+ Foreign: $375,700,000 76.0%
= Worldwide: $494,616,760