Transformers spinoff Bumblebee to take place in the 1980’s

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Along with the main installments of the TRANSFORMERS franchise, a writers room has been busy developing quite a few potential TRANSFORMERS movies to keep the series chugging along. The next film on the slate after TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT will be a spinoff centered around the much-loved Autobot Bumblebee in the years before he joined forces with Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf). In their latest issue, Empire ran a feature focusing on the TRANSFORMERS writers room in which a few small details were confirmed about the upcoming spinoff.

We knew that BUMBLEBEE would be a prequel, but we now know that the film will be set in the 1980's, which happens to be when the original TRANSFORMERS animated series first aired. The film will also feature "significantly fewer" Transformers as it will aim to concentrate more on Bumblebee himself. We should also expect the tone to be a little different as they're looking to pitch the film to a younger audience. Conceived and written by Christina Hodson, the TRANSFORMERS spinoff will be directed by Travis Knight (KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS) and production is expected to get underway this summer. As for who will star in the film alongside Bumblebee, it was revealed last month that Hailee Steinfeld (TRUE GRIT) was in negotiations to take on a leading role in the film. Should the deal take, Steinfeld would reportedly play "a tomboy who also holds a job as a mechanic after school."

One of the other TRANSFORMERS projects in the works is an animated prequel set billions of years ago about the origin myth of the Transformers' home planet of Cybertron. Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari of ANT-MAN will be penning that one. There have also been discussions about a TRANSFORMERS spinoff set in Ancient Rome, which doesn't seem as weird as it should now that we know that the Transformers have been popping up throughout our history.

The official synopsis for TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT:

The Last Knight shatters the core myths of the Transformers franchise and redefines what it means to be a hero. Humans and Transformers are at war, Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future lies buried in the secrets of the past, in the hidden history of Transformers on Earth. Saving our world falls upon the shoulders of an unlikely alliance: Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg); Bumblebee; an English Lord (Sir Anthony Hopkins); and an Oxford Professor (Laura Haddock). There comes a moment in everyone’s life when we are called upon to make a difference. In Transformers: The Last Knight, the hunted will become heroes. Heroes will become villains. Only one world will survive: theirs, or ours.

TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT is set for a June 21, 2017 release and will be followed by BUMBLEBEE on June 8, 2018.