Transformers: Rise of the Beasts director reached out to Michael Bay for advice

Love ’em or hate ’em, Michael Bay has helmed more hours of live-action Transformers mayhem than any other director. Steven Caple Jr. has taken the helm of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, but he told THR that he still reached out to Michael Bay for advice on the movie.

“You want to make sure you’re in your creative bubble when trying to design this world and build out the franchise, but similar to when I stepped into the Creed franchise, you call the ones who have done it before you, whether it be Sylvester Stallone or Ryan Coogler,” Steven Caple Jr. explained. “So I’m doing the same here. I hit up Michael Bay, who’s, of course, a producer on this project. He was making Ambulance at the time, but he still picked up the phone and hopped onto Zoom.“

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts obviously deals with a lot of visual effects, which was a new area for Caple. “It was a huge learning curve, and it was like going through school again, if you will,” Caple said. “Monday through Friday, I was prepping for the film, and Saturday, Sunday, I was learning a lot from the visual effects supervisor and calls with Michael Bay. He gave hints and tips on how to accomplish certain things, so you‘ve definitely gotta hit those guys up who’ve done it before me. It helps.” I’ll admit that Michael Bay’s Transformers movies didn’t always connect with me, but visually, the man was a master at making me believe that those giant robots really existed.

After the first Transformers movie, Michael Bay returned to helm Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Transformers: Age of Extinction, and Transformers: The Last Knight. That’s a lot. He passed the baton to Travis Knight for Bumblebee, which served as a soft reboot of the franchise. There’s also an animated Transformers movie in development which will serve as an origin story for Optimus Prime and Megatron on Cybertron.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts will take audiences on a ‘90s globetrotting adventure with the Autobots and introduce a whole new faction of Transformers – the Maximals – to join them as allies in the existing battle for Earth. The film Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, Tobe Nwigwe, Peter Cullen, Ron Perlman Peter Dinklage, Michelle Yeoh, Pete Davidson, Liza Koshy, John DiMaggio, David Sobolov, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Colman Domingo, Cristo Fernández and Tongayi Chirisa. Rise of the Beasts will hit theaters on June 9th.