Transformers One tells a ‘biblical’ Optimus Prime story that only animation can pull off
While the box-office haul of this summer’s Transformers: Rise of the Beastsdoesn’t compare to the highest highs of the Michael Bay era, it’s still a big enough hit that fans of the robots in disguise should expect another sequel in the future (and one with a toy line crossover twist). In fact, Transformers 8 isn’t even the only TF movie Paramount Pictures has in the works: Announced in April, the studio will release the animated Transformers One in theaters in 2024. Longtime Transformers movie series producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura tells Polygon says the movie is big — maybe the biggest Transformers story his team has brought to screen yet.
“You could not make this movie live-action,” he says, while on the press tour for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’ digital release. “If we did it in live-action it would cost twice what we normally would spend on a big Transformers movie. In animation, not only can we afford it, it’s less than a Transformers movie. We can do things in animation… I mean, imagine being on Cybertron? What does Cybertron really look like? We get the opportunity to define that.”
Transformers One winds back the clock on the war between Autobots and Decepticons and shakes up the casting: Chris Hemsworth has been cast as the voice of a young Optimus Prime, replacing series stalwart Peter Cullen, while recent Atlanta star and Oscar nominee Bryan Tyree Henry subs in for Frank Welker as voice Megatron. Rounding out the cast are Scarlett Johansson as Elita One, Keegan-Michael Key as Bumblebee, Jon Hamm as Sentinel Prime, and Laurence Fishburne as Alpha Trion. And, yes, it’s all set on Cybertron.
Transformers One marks the first fully animated feature film from the artists at Industrial Light & Magic since 2011’s
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