New animated Transformers movie to have Optimus Prime, Megatron twist

A new animated Transformers film is set to hit theaters next summer and will feature Optimus Prime and Megatron with a twist.

The Transformers franchise has been seeing a bit of a resurgence in recent years between the release of Bumblebee and the forthcoming Rise of the Beasts, but fans of the franchise and of animation will be excited about the latest update regarding an upcoming project.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura, producer of Rise of the Beasts and an untitled animated film due to release next summer, spoke with Collider's Steve Weintraub and gave a pretty big update regarding what this film is about. “I could tell you really important parts of this story, which is more than a tease. This is something we were trying to do; we debated a lot about it in live action, and it just was financially impossible to do, which is, the origin story of young Megatron and young Optimus [Prime]. If you know the origin, they started as friends, and over time things devolved for them and they ended up on two sides. So we're telling the young Optimus and the young Megatron story. We really are telling the origin story of all Transformers, both what they were at the beginning of it, to how they grow, to how they grow apart,” he said.

He would continue by revealing that this is not necessarily a one-off event, “We’re hoping that there is enough emotional construct to that, that would lead to a trilogy of it because, personally, I think there's a natural trilogy. I'm not always looking to do multiple movies, but there's a natural trilogy around their relationship. So, you're going to see Cybertron in a way you've never seen it, that no one's ever seen it before. Because we're doing an animation, we're allowed to really go all out. If you tried to make this live-action, it would probably be a billion-dollar movie or something.”

The Transformers franchise has been in dire need of a refresh after Michael Bay's five films from 2007-2017. Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings) helmed Bumblebee, which seemed to bring goodwill back to the franchise. Steven Caple Jr. (Creed II) is set to direct Rise of the Beasts which stars Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, Lauren Vélez, and Tobe Nwigwe as the human characters. Some of the Transformers include Pete Davidson, Ron Perlman, Peter Dinklage, and Michelle Yeoh among others.

The untitled animated Transformers film is scheduled to be released on July 19, 2024.