Bumblebee may not be scaling the same commercial heights as its various predecessors from the Transformers series, but with a lower budget than any of Michael Bay’s overblown blockbusters, it seems that the spinoff has still yielded high enough figures to earn a sequel.
A new piece from Deadline reports that the Travis Knight-helmed film currently has a sequel in development, before speculating that this might mean a Bumblebee and Optimus Prime buddy movie. And while the notion is mentioned only as a passing theory, the post-credits of Bumblebee certainly hint at the possibility.
Incidentally, it was reported by Metro a few weeks ago that while writer Christina Hodson is hoping for a Bumblebee sequel, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura is keen to get an Optimus Prime solo movie made. And though we’re still waiting for further news on the latter project, di Bonaventura at least seems optimistic that Bumblebee has managed to bring in a new audience for the series, telling Deadline:
“We had many objectives (including) to bring a new set of families into the series, and that succeeded; in the after markets that will continue to succeed in a big way. Part of our obligation was to bring people back who had left the franchise or never experienced it which worked well… We are finding our way. Our intention was we wanted to please the core fans but also bring a new audience.”
Though the Transformers franchise has usually managed to thrive at the box office in the face of lousy reviews, 2017’s Transformers: The Last Knight saw a commercial dip in the series, suggesting that even the property’s core audience was starting to lose interest. In that respect, you could say that the release of Bumblebee was well-timed, in that the movie managed earn the praises of filmgoers who’d seen little to love in the recent Bay flicks.
From here the question is raised of how exactly the franchise can follow through on this success while maintaining its new fans, but wherever the Transformers property goes from here, it’s both strange and refreshing to know that reports of a sequel are no longer the cause for mass despair that they once were.