Bumblebee Release Date Moved, Cena Joins Cast as Filming Starts

Today Paramount Pictures released a touch more information about the Bumblebee movie which began principle photography today. To start, the release date of the movie has moved from June 2018 to December 21, 2018. Also announced is that WWE's John Cena is joining the cast in a "lead role." No details on the role were provided but I guess he will do the heavy lifting for any of the action sequences in the film. Last is an official synposis for the film that reveals 'Bee's alt mode will be a VW bug and Hailee Steinfeld's character is called Charlie.

On the run in the year 1987, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard in a small Californian beach town. Charlie (Steinfeld), on the cusp of turning 18 and trying to find her place in the world, discovers Bumblebee, battle-scarred and broken. When Charlie revives him, she quickly learns this is no ordinary, yellow VW bug.

While I have no problem with Cena joining the movie (what little seen him do he was fine in), I hope they are not having a teenager-ish movie that every time action stuff happens they have the cast take a backseat while the "adult" takes care of business. If there was one common thread of all the teenager movies of the 80s and 90s is the (usual rich) teenagers would get themselves into trouble and would also get themselves out of it. All with little or no meaningful assistance from the adult cast (see Ferris Beuller, Goonies, License to Drive, any John Hughes movie, etc.).

As for the release date movie, no explanation was provided for the move but after the trouncing The Last Knight got my guess is Paramount is hoping less competition will yield better results. I agree with the move, its a smart one. Just don't agree with the weekend they chose. After all the holiday time frame is usually when Hollywood releases all their Oscar-bait films with a sprinkling of action films. November will see release of X-Men: Dark Phoenix (11/2/18), Fantastic Beats 2 (11/16/18), Wreck-It Ralph 2 (11/21/18) among others. December has Aquaman on 12/21/18. The same date as Bumblebee movie. It seems like an odd choice since had other more potential less risky weekends since the audience for Aquaman and the Bumblebee movie are probably near identical regardless of one of them being more teenager friendly and 40% of the budget of the other. Guess see in a year and half if it was a smart choice or not.