K.T Simpson
“Transformers: The Last Knight” will hit cinemas next week, and in the meantime, a bunch of spinoff talk has been doing the rounds. With 14 spinoffs and sequels to come, there’s a lot of talk surrounding the franchise – if that’s good or bad news, I’ll leave that to you to decide.
“Bumblebee” is due for release in 2018, and Optimus Prime’s second in command Autobot will be front and centre for this spinoff. Not much is known about this one, apart from the news that Hailee Steinfeld may be circling for a role, and it will hit cinemas a year after “Transformers 5”. The latest news to come out about the spinoff is that it will go back in time, and be set in the 1980s.
Empire Magazine revealed a few key details about “Bumblebee”, as well as the era they also noted that there will be far fewer robots than in the other “Transformers” films, perhaps to keep the yellow machine in the spotlight.
The magazine also noted that there was to be a “Transformers” movie set in Ancient Rome. At first this sounds a little odd, but as ScreenRant have noted, the 5th movie has parts that take place in the medieval reign of King Arthur and World War II, giving the robots a chance at manipulating our known history. Not only that, but previous “Transformers” films have introduced Dinobots, alien presence in the pyramids and Autobots on the moon. In short, nothing is outside the realm of the Transformers.
There’s also an animated film in the works, which will be a prequel set on Cybertron, and focuses on the origin myth of the Transformers. Producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventure confirmed this with ScreenRant, and also went on to say that upcoming films could be set in different times. So essentially, the sequels could be prequels. My head hurts.
As “Transformers: The Last Knight” is said to be Bay’s last film to direct (however take that with a grain of salt), it will be interesting to see how the film sets up or connects the 328943734 sequels/prequels/spinoffs yet to come. “Transformers 6” is the next to come in 2019, following 2018’s spinoff “Bumblebee”.
