In Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Maximals and Autobots will finally team up on the big screen! Former soldier and tech expert Noah Diaz and history buff museum researcher Elena Wallace stumble across Autobot and Maximal Transformers. Pulled into an ancient war, the duo teams up with the Autobots and Maximals to save Earth from Unicron, a planet-destroying force and enemy of the Transformers.
Steven Caple Jr. helms the newest installment of the Transformers franchise with a script penned by Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, Erich Hoeber, and Jon Hoeber from a story by Joby Harold. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts stars Peter Cullen, Pete Davidson, Liza Koshy, Ron Perlman, Michelle Yeoh, Peter Dinklage, and David Sobolov as the voices of the Transformers. Rounding out the star-studded cast are Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, Lauren Luna Vélez, Tobe Nwigwe, and Dean Scott Vazquez.
Screen Rant spoke with producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura about his new movie, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. He discussed the challenges of bringing the Maximals into a Transformers movie and setting Transformers: Rise of the Beasts in the 1990s. Di Bonaventura also put to rest the fan theory that John Cena's Bumblebee character was Duke from GI Joe.
Lorenzo Di Bonaventura on Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
Screen Rant: I love Transformers: Rise of the Beasts! This might be my favorite installment in the franchise. What was it about the Maximals that drew you in and can you talk about setting them apart from the other Transformers?
Lorenzo Di Bonaventura: Yeah, we've been talking about the Maximals for quite a while. It's a tricky thing to try to bring cars and animals together — that's really the truth — and feel organic. The hard part about the Maximals from our perspective is we've usually been an urban-based movie in large part. They can't hide.
So, we had to come up with a story that was logical that we had them and then put them into an environment that they can hide in, which is how we get to the Peruvian jungle. It was something we've been talking about. We just hadn't had a story, and then we finally said, "We've got to find a story because it's time." And so, we came up with this adventure story.
I know this movie takes place in the '90s. What inspired that decision and how does that impact the story?
Lorenzo Di Bonaventura: Well, it impacts it in a couple really good ways. But basically, Bumblebee was 1987, and we were going to progress it forward. 1994 is an incredible year for hip-hop. And in a way, we were trying to center it in a specific culture, which is what's happening in Brooklyn at that time as it turns out. And then we were trying to set it against what you come against in Peru, which is both the indigenous people, the city, and the Incan legacy, if you would.
I thought Steven did a fantastic job directing this movie. Can you talk to me about working with him as a collaborator and what his directing style brought to this film? Because I know he's a huge fan of Beast Wars, too.
Lorenzo Di Bonaventura: That's right. Beast Wars was one of his, if not his favorite thing. The reason we picked Steven was because when you looked at his work, it has a tremendous amount of humanity in it and the characters are always well drawn and this story, when we picked it out, we specifically wanted to push the emotionality. So that the emotionality of it, in a way, collides against the scale of it.
One of the hardest things in Transformers is you got these five six-foot people against these 35-foot people and how do you keep the humans involved in a way? It's, in some ways, the hardest thing we do. And so by doing that, we pushed the emotional context of what's going on with the humans.
I had a fan theory from Bumblebee that I wanted to run by you and see if we can match it up here. I thought that John Cena's character in Bumblebee was possibly Duke from GI Joe. Any way you can confirm or deny that?
Lorenzo Di Bonaventura: I can deny that, but I could see why you'd feel that because he does have some of that energy, if you would. I'd love to work with John again. He's fantastic and hopefully we can bring him back into the series.
About Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
In 1994 Brooklyn, New York a former soldier and a museum employee are pulled into a fight for their world when the Autobot Transformers and Maximals team up to fight against the destructive force of Unicron. The Transformers and humans must work together to protect Earth from being consumed by Unicron.
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