Steven Caple Jr.'s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is now available on Digital HD, and to mark the occasion, we were recently able to sit down with producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura to talk about all the major developments in the latest hit entry in the long-running Transformers saga.
To get things started, he teases how that huge Transformers and G.I. Joe crossover moment came to be, and when we could potentially see that film. We also discuss next year's big animated release Transformers One, which will feature Chris Hemsworth (Thor: Love and Thunder; Extraction 2) as the voice of Optimus Prime.
He also breaks down some of the biggest revelations from Rise of the Beasts, including how the franchise timeline works, how they were able to secure the beautiful Machu Picchu as a shooting location, introducing the world to a different Optimus Prime, Bumblebee's story arc, the addition of Mirage, and a whole lot more. Plus, he reveals when fans could potentially see Hailee Steinfeld again!
Rise of the Beasts has grossed over $427.2 million at the global box office, which while not reaching the billion-dollar blockbuster heights of its predecessors, does still make it a fairly modest success for Paramount on its estimated $200 million production budget. Plus, thanks to its 91% verified audience score, there's plenty of reason the next film will benefit from this positive word of mouth.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is available on Digital now and 4K Ultra HD SteelBook™, 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray™, and DVD on October 10th.
Watch our full interview with Lorenzo di Bonaventura below, and please remember to SUBSCRIBE to my YouTube channel for more exclusive content!
ROHAN: I want to get started with the question on everybody's mind - what can you tell us about the upcoming Transformers/G.I. Joe crossover? I'm going to assume that's the next film, but would it pick up after the events of Snake Eyes or would it be something else entirely?
LORENZO: Here's the answer: I don't know the second question’s answer because we haven't gotten that far. But, like every other Transformers movie, the ingredients of the movie is humans and robots get together to stop the villain. The Joes are going to be part of the ingredients now. We're not going into the Joe world, they're coming into our world. So, if you think about it that way, I think that's the closest thing to the plan that we have. We now have to figure out the plot we want to do, etcetera, but they will be an active participant, if you would, a few of the characters, in trying to stop the bad guy.
ROHAN: With this film taking place in 1994, how exactly does the timeline work? Do they still connect to the Michael Bay films or are we seeing a new timeline emerge?
LORENZO: It's all actually really simple. Bumblebee is ‘87, we’re ‘94, and Michael’s starts in 2007. We do our best not to contradict anything, but we don't have to live, if you would, with anything in that movie as long as it's not a direct contradiction. So, for instance, in this movie, you meet Optimus at a place in his life that's different than where you meet him in the Bay film, right? He's really having a lot of questions and vulnerabilities about what he's doing and why he's here. In Bay films, he knows why he's here. So, in this film, you're learning along with him why he's here. We are not contradicting the Bay films, but we are developing the character, so when you get there, you understand the character in a different way, and we try to do that with plot elements. I'm sure we get one or two wrong, but we're trying our best not to.
ROHAN: The first Transfomers was released in 2007 right after my freshman year in high school, and I remember how it became such a cultural phenomenon, but now, with Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts, you're reintroducing these iconic characters to a new generation of people. Internally, after The Last Knight, how did you reassess the franchise and decide on this new direction?
LORENZO: Yeah, well, in a lot of ways, the Bumblebee movie was a tip to, if you would, the Generation One, right? And, also, one of the things we wanted for that movie was the world not to know at all about the Transformers, and, in a sense, have an introduction to them into the world in a way that's different. That, in a way, mandated the past, and I don't know why we settled on 1987, but I think it was a few years after the movie. So, it was a way we were pretending, in a sense, that it was a sequel to the animated movie, but more importantly, it freed us from having to worry about continuity, because you're going back before, in a sense, anything has been established. So, all you had to do was make sure you didn't contradict it.
ROHAN: You were able to shoot at Machu Picchu, which looks absolutely stunning. Can you tell me about how you were able to secure that location and your experience? Was it a quick phone call or was it more of a process?
LORENZO: It's a process because you have to get a government to allow you to come in and shoot on what is essentially a national - well, a treasure of the world, isn't it? So, you know, they had never allowed that kind of thing before. I think there was one movie, some Peruvian movie, frankly, it was a small movie, but we couldn't find any real proof of anybody ever shooting there. They're hypersensitive, in a great way, of protecting the stones there. They didn't want us to do anything.
So, we were very limited in the equipment we could bring, the things we could do. You couldn't bring food up, so everybody had to go up and down the mountain every day for lunch. There's a lot of accommodation you make, you know, we met the ministry that was in charge of the sites, and we developed a relationship and we explained to them the process and they explained to us what was important to them and then you reach an agreement on how to do it.
Part of what Peru liked was that we weren't there just to shoot Machu Picchu, we wanted to shoot their jungle, we wanted to shoot Cusco and their culture, which is the parade. That's a real parade that they do every year, and those are actually really their costumes. We're highlighting things that are great about Peru, so they like you coming there if that's what your intention is, and that was our intention.
ROHAN: Unlike the previous films, this time we have Mirage taking centerstage essentially, with Bumblebee getting sidelined for a large chunk of the movie. I know Bumblebee means a lot to people my age, but did you want to take him off the table so that a new generation could get their own hero in Mirage?
LORENZO: No, I mean, we love Bumblebee and I love Bumblebee, personally. I’ve spent 17 years with Bumblebee, 17 or 18 years, whenever we started developing it. No, I think it was really about introducing a new character into the mix, allowing room for that, because you can only develop so many characters in one movie or else you don't get to know anybody.
We really wanted to have a new special character, Mirage turned into that, which was great, and, Bumblebee will always be part of it. It’s sort of like, I always say that Optimus and Bumblebee are like Batman and Robin, you know, you're never going to kill off either character, so they'll be around and they're great. But, you know, in the Optimus case, we purposely wanted the audience to have a new experience with Optimus, and just as our hope was to be emotionally relatable from a human point of view, we were looking for more emotional relatability from the robots.
ROHAN: You mentioned earlier about not wanting to contradict any of the future films, so if there aren't any contradictions with Age of Extinction, could that mean we could see the Dinobots again at some point?
LORENZO: I think you could. I think the question would be - I'd have to go back, you know, we've done seven movies now and some are a little bit distant. I'd have to go back and remind myself, what does Optimus know about the Dinobots? Did we say something about the Dinobots that was a surprise for him to know? Like, in this movie, it's a surprise for him to know that the beasts are here. So, I think we'd have to first do that homework and say, was there anything in there that said: how he knows them? Or, any of the Transformers? How do they know them? If there's nothing in that contradiction, then I don't think there's any reason to say why you couldn't. I'd like to see the beasts and the Dinobots together.
ROHAN: Were there ever any discussions about bringing back Hailee Steinfeld's character Charlie? Or, someone like John Cena? Or, maybe John Turturro's character?
LORENZO: John Turturro’s character, that's a more complicated one. We actually had a scene that had Hailee come into this, and I could see Hailee coming into the next one for sure, there's nothing stopping us. She was phenomenal, and we'd love to have her back. I think, one of the characters that I loved and then frankly, was my son's favorite character was Ironhide, which we killed off, so we could bring him back because he's not dead yet. So, that's an example of the thing we could do now.
ROHAN: I was able to see an early look at Transfomers One at CinemaCon, and it looks phenomenal. What can you tell us about that film and casting Chris Hemsworth as Optimus Prime? When could w
LORENZO: I don't know when the first look will be out because animation takes so long, but it's probably not until next Spring or early Summer is my guess. It was a big deal to cast Chris, and the reason we did is because you’re meeting him as Orion Pax - and Peter Cullen is phenomenal, but his voice is old. You feel the age in his voice. I don't mean he's an old guy, I mean, you feel the age and you needed to feel that Orion Pax had a lot of youth in his voice, and was more appropriate to the story we were telling, which is the origin story of the friendship between what becomes Megatron and Optimus.
So, what I will say is ILM is doing the animation and the objective here is to be completely original in look, which I think, having seen quite a bit of, I'll say the early artwork, I think we're going to achieve. And, it's a phenomenal story that comes directly out of the canon of who these guys were, and how they fell apart and become such great enemies, but best of friends to worst of enemies is a great story.
ROHAN: If the next live-action film is the Transformers/G.I. Joe crossover, when could we realistically see that film?
LORENZO: It's a good question. We were about to start a script when the writers’ strike happened. So, our hope was we were going to have it for 2025, but I think the longer the strike goes on, the more it puts it in 2026.
Returning to the action and spectacle that have captured moviegoers around the world, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts will take audiences on a ‘90s globetrotting adventure with the Autobots and introduce a whole new faction of Transformer – the Maximals – to join them as allies in the existing battle for earth. Directed by Steven Caple Jr. and starring Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback, the film arrives in theatres June 9, 2023.
TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS is available on Digital now and 4K Ultra HD SteelBook™, 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray™, and DVD on October 10th.