Transformers Producer Confirms Female Lead, 1980s Setting For 2018’s Bumblebee Spinoff

Assuming Michael Bay stays true to his word – and history tells us that the director has a habit of pulling a U-turn when it comes to Paramount’s robots in disguise – the launch of Transformers: The Last Knight will signal Bay’s final contribution to the effects-laden saga. The era of Bayhem is nearing its conclusion, then, but what next?

A Bumblebee spinoff, that’s what, followed by umpteen Transformers films set within various historical epochs – Ancient Rome has purportedly been earmarked has one potential location. Pegged for release on June 8, 2018, a handful of story details have been trickling out for the Travis Knight-directed offshoot, including its 80s setting and the potential casting of Hailee Steinfeld. Now, thanks to a new interview with Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, we have confirmation of that time period and female lead. Granted, the addition of Steinfeld is yet to be confirmed.

Per Collider, di Bonaventura stressed that the Bumblebee prequel will be a “very distinctive departure” from the Transformers films of old.

I know we’re doing a spinoff first in the Bumblebee movie, and that is a very distinctive departure from what you’ve been seeing so far… The objective of that movie is to develop more time with less robots in a way, and to go back to 1985 and go back to sort of the original heritage if you would of the Transformers. G1.

1985 is an important year in the history of Transformers in the sense that Hasbro’s media franchise really took off thanks to the Generation 1 TV shows. Perhaps Travis Knight’s spinoff will be steeped in that defining history, then? One way or another, it’ll feature a female lead for a story that is seemingly not unlike that of The Iron Giant, Brad Bird’s animated classic of ’99.

So it has a very distinct idea in it, and then whatever is gonna happen with the chemistry is what’s gonna happen, but it really is a young female lead opposite Bumblebee, and I think Optimus is gonna be jealous that Bumblebee has his own movie. In fact, it reminds me a little bit of Iron Giant years ago when I did that movie at Warner Bros. It just reminds me a little bit of that where it was very contained and yet it didn’t feel small.”

Paramount will shed light on Bumblebee’s formative years on Earth when Travis Knight’s prequel races into theatres on June 8th, 2018. Transformers: The Last Knight, meanwhile, will debut on June 21st of this year and when it does, it’ll signal the last hurrah for both Mark Wahlberg and director Michael Bay – for real this time.