Michael Bay‘s Transformers: The Last Knight has barely been in theaters for a month now and talk has already moved on to what’s coming next from the franchise. It was announced in February that in 2018, yellow Autobot Bumblebee is getting his own self-titled movie. Travis Knight, who helmed Kubo and the Two Strings, is on board to direct the movie, which is set to be a period piece taking place in 1987. Monday, Paramount has shared a bunch of tasty new nuggets about the movie, perhaps the most important being a firm release date: December 21, 2018.
They also gave a brief and general summary of the plot, which involved Bumblebee on the run in 1987, hiding in a junkyard in a small California beach town. A female character named Charlie, “on the cusp of turning 18 and trying to find her place in the world,” discovers Bumblebee, in a state of disrepair, so she fixes him and realizes quickly that this “car” isn’t as it appears.
Principal photography has begun on the film, and the cast looks like a lot of fun: Charlie is portrayed by Hailie Steinfeld, while the rest of the cast is rounded out by Pamela Adlon, John Cena, Stephen Schneider, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Jason Drucker, Kenneth Choi, Ricardo Hoyos, Abby Quinn, Rachel Crow, and Grace Dzienny.
“There are characters in the Transformers universe that can be and should be made into their own movies,†Paramount Pictures CEO Brad Grey previously said. “We will make [Transformers 5] with Michael [Bay] and go right into a Bumblebee movie, which will be at a lower cost.”
That’s what we know for now, but we’ve also done plenty of speculating already, so revisit that here.
Featured image: Paramount Pictures
