The title for the next Transformers movie has been revealed. The film series has been on hiatus for the past few years, ever since 2017’s The Last Knight raked in the cash but received poor reviews and 2018’s Bumblebee achieved critical acclaim but failed to make much money. Paramount has elected to try a different direction this time, then, and is developing a Beast Wars flick. And it’s officially to be titled Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.
The title was announced at a virtual Transformers press event that took place this Tuesday, with the movie’s name unveiled alongside a bunch of other details about the project. As we already knew, Creed II‘s Steven Caple Jr. is directing with Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback attached to star. The Predacons, the Maximals and the Terrorcons will all appear in Rise of the Beasts, which will be set in 1994, with the action split between Brooklyn, New York and Peru.
Though the big hook of this film is the introduction of the Beast Wars characters, the OG Transformers will still feature. Bumblebee is back, as is Optimus Prime, who will return to his Generation 1 look, with Peter Cullen again voicing him. Mirage and Arcee have also been confirmed to be involved. The Decepticons will turn up, but not in as major a capacity as usual. Instead, the Predacon Scourge will serve as the main villain, with Nightbird as his second-in-command.
Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura explained at the event that the decision was made to draw from the Beast Wars canon because it was felt that the prior entries in the franchise had “exhausted” the conflict between the Autobots and the Decepticons. Given that, the creative team agreed that the best course to take with this seventh chapter in the saga would be to introduce different “tribes” of Transformers.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts just started production in Los Angeles earlier this month and is set to be released in theaters on June 24th, 2022.
