Whether you want it or not, there are multiple new Transformers movies heading to a cinema near you over the next few years. There’s a reboot that will reportedly wipe Michael Bay’s five entries from continuity and start with a clean narrative slate, a Beast Wars adaptation that’s currently being scripted by Zodiac and White House Down‘s James Vanderbilt, a mystery animated project hailing from Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley, and a sequel to Travis Knight’s Bumblebee.
The 1980s-set spinoff is the best Transformers movie by a country mile, and actually has a higher Rotten Tomatoes score than Bay’s final four efforts combined. Despite being the only installment greeted with widespread critical enthusiasm, though, it made the least amount of money after topping out at a box office total of $468 million. However, Bumblebee was also a whole lot cheaper to produce than the rest of the franchise’s outings, meaning it managed to turn a decent-sized profit when home video and merchandise sales are factored in.
Any movement on a sequel has been very slow, to put it lightly, but we’re now hearing from our sources – the same ones that told us the entire Transformers series is being rebooted months before it was confirmed – that Paramount want to recruit Stranger Things and Enola Holmes star Millie Bobby Brown for a lead role.
According to our intel, the part would be one of the main human characters and while Hailee Steinfeld is expected to return as well, we don’t have any further details on the role Brown is being eyed for or how she’d be connected to Steinfeld’s Charlie. In any case, the 16 year-old has plenty of experience working on effects-heavy productions thanks to Stranger Things and Godzilla: King of the Monsters, while the success of Enola Holmes has shown she’s more than capable of leading a movie on her own. As such, she’d make an excellent addition to the film should she decide to sign on.