Transformers Live Action Movie Blog (TFLAMB): Bumblebee 2

Hot on the heels of Hasbro and Paramount announcing an animated movie is in the works, they have now added a live action one to the slate too. It doesn't have a director yet but it does have potentials writers and a release date - June 24, 2022. Paramount has created essentially a mini-competition between two writers with difference concepts. James Venderbilt (Murder Mystery) will write a script based on Transformers: Beast Wars while Joby Harold (John Wick Chapter 3, Army of the Dead) will focus on a story "reportedly in the Bumblebee universe" aka Bumblebee 2. Whichever script Paramount and Hasbro likes most will be the 2022 date and the other will be shelved for a later or never date.

In slightly related news GI Joe has its own movie news. Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins is still on the schedule for October 23, 2020 release. Apparently they like what they have seen as a sequel of sorts is now in the works with Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse (Seberg, The Great Machine of Ex Machina comic series) working on a script. The "of sort" part is because its unclear if its a Snake Eyes or G.I. Joe-centric movie. Any case that is a few years out and likely the end of Snake Eyes will provide a strong hint on what this sort of sequel will be.

No release date for the animated movie but best can tell most direct to video releases turnaround time is about 1 to 1.5 years while turnaround for a theatrical release is 2 to 2.5 years so its possible we could get two Transformers and a GI Joe movies in 2022.

Weirdly enough the theatrical promotion of Bumblebee isn't quite done. The movie is finally about to premiere in Japan on March 22 which is why have not posted a final tally on its box office totals as good chance that country will add around $10-20 million to the total (currently worldwide is $459.5M). As a consequence it means that executive producer was doing a little double duty in interview both talking about the Bumblebee while also promoting his next film Pet Semetary. Since in his mind the movie's run in nearly complete, he instead focused on the future of the franchise and some lessons learned.

One lesson he learned is getting to know the Transformers is good, but movie audiences still want some additional "bayhem" in their scenes. Of course the primary reason for the lack of action (compared to Bay directed films) was the drop in budget as those scenes don't come cheap.

Several lessons have come out of this. One is that we have the freedom to tell almost any story. The other is that, how strongly the audience identified with the strength of character and emotion. I know the next Transformer, our attempt anyway, is to sort of do a fusion of Bumblebee and the Bay movies…a little more Bayhem. And a little bit more of the character falling in love within the emotional dynamic of the movie. One of the things I want to do—and I hope we pull it off—is, we did it with Bumblebee because he’s so cute and he’s so accessible, but he can’t talk. I think the more human we can make these characters, the more people are going to like them.”

Earlier in the year, di Bonaventura hinted that an Optimus Prime was being considered. Speaking with Japanese site The River (translated by Bleeding Cool), it seems the decision instead is to add more Prime to the Bumblebee sequel.

“I do not intend to do Optimus’ solo film. In the sequel to Bumblebee, I’m thinking of two characters, Optimus and Bumblebee. That way, Bumblebee can do something with Optimus. It would be nice if that would happen! That’s because buddy films don’t even do marvel films. So I think it would be very interesting. I used to do “Lethal Weapon” as well. So to speak, Danny Glover is Optimus. Bumblebee looks like “Oh, no no no no …”.

A writer has not even been hired so whatever he is thinking now could change further as Bumblebee 2 is likely at least two years away.

Lastly, the busy executive producer also spoke about Transformers 6 with Japanese site Cinema (translated by Dark Horizons) that the other script being worked is "the latest in the main family series following the events of Transformers: The Last Knight." So those hoping for Unicron can still have some hope but I am not holding my breath on that particular story beat being picked up.