The new “Transformers” movie has only just begun shooting, but Paramount Pictures wants to let the world know that they’re still spending all the money on this franchise. Today Paramount held a virtual Production Kickoff press conference event for the new film titled “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” complete with a virtual tour of their lot and an information-filled conversation with the director, Steven Caple Jr., producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, and the film’s stars Anthony Ramos (“In The Heights“) and Dominique Fishback (“Judas and the Black Messiah“).
As the title suggests, the new film will incorporate the popular ’90s storyline Beast Wars into the “Transformers” cinematic universe and will take place in Brooklyn in 1994. A continuation of the story started in Travis Knight’s “Bumblebee,” which took place in 1987; the film will be a “globetrotting adventure” taking place in both Brooklyn and Peru (specifically Macchu Picchu) and “introduce the Maximals, Predacons, and Terrorcons to the existing battle on earth between Autobots and Decepticons,” according to Di Bonaventura.
“What’s interesting about Transformers overall is that there’s different breeds of Transformers if you will,” Caple Jr, a noted Transformers and Beast Wars fanatic’ said. “We have different insignias, different groups, and Beast Wars happens to be one of them… in our particular film, they’re these prehistoric animals that travel through time and space, and we find them here on earth, and that’s all I’m going to say… They’re prehistoric; they’re powerful beasts, they have a familiar enemy, anyone that’s familiar with the actual lore [will know] the Predicons.”
READ MORE: ‘Bumblebee’: ’80s Nostalgia Fuels A Comeback For The ‘Transformers’ Series [Review]
Di Bonaventura also said the franchise is trying to break new ground and at least present something fresh. “One of the most important things we were trying to do with this movie was to is give the audience a lot of new,” he explained. “And we’d somewhat exhausted the battle between the Decepticons and Autobots, and certainly, we’d explored it in a lot of different ways. So, it’s like, how do we find a new set of villains, how do we find a new set of priorities for the villains, and again, saving the world is left to the Autobots, and, in this case, the Maximals.”
READ MORE: Anthony Ramos To Star In Steven Caple, Jr’s Upcoming ‘Transformers’ Film
This time, instead of Shia LeBeouf or Mark Wahlberg, the Transformers will be interacting with human characters played by Brooklyn natives Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback. When asked about their characters, Dominique teased that her character is “an intelligent artifact researcher who works at a museum…she’s trying to get a leg up in life, but her boss keeps taking credit for the work she’s done.”
“In the Heights” star Anthony Ramos said that his character named Noah is an “electronics wiz” that “lives with his mother and brother. He’s sort of the father figure to his brother and is all about taking care of the people he loves. He’s ex-military and is trying to find his way. Noah is always hustling.” Ramos also added that when he heard the film would follow ‘Beast Wars,’ his “head almost exploded,” as he’s a massive fan of the storyline.
The hour-long press event also included exclusive top-secret sneak peeks at new Transformers appearing in the film, like Mirage (a Porche 911), Arcee (Ducati 916), Nightbird (Nissan GTR), Air Razor (A hawk-like beast Transformer), Rhinox (A robo-rhino), Optimus Primal (the gorilla transformer and father figure to the new beast transformer characters), the “scary” Terrorcon leader known as Scourge, and a new “off-road” Camaro version of Bumblebee.
Di Bonaventura added that, while Bumblebee was a smaller-scale film than the original Bay movies, this new adventure is “on a larger scale… we’re going for the full experience that this franchise has come to be known for…This is going to be big, it’s going to have spectacle and the action you want it to have.” But director Steven Caple Jr. made sure to note that he will be prioritizing “heart and humor” with the story being “all about the emotion and where we can take our new characters.”
Paramount Pictures is set to release “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” on June 24, 2022.