Bumblebee to Borrow from G1 Aesthetic

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Bumblebee Producer Says Transformers Spinoff will Evoke Generation 1

By Anthony Couto

Published Jul 9, 2017

Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura confirms the Transformers spinoff's 1985 setting and teases some classic Generation 1 influences.

Now that Transformers: The Last Knight has it theaters, Paramount Pictures is turning its focus to the upcoming spinoff movie starring fan-favorite Autobot Bumblebee. In a new interview with Collider, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura teased the 1980s setting, in addition to its classic, '80s Generation 1 Transformers influences.

"The objective of that movie is to develop more time with less robots, and to go back to 1985 and to go back to the original heritage, if you would, of the Transformers, G1. So, it has a very distinct idea in it, and whatever is going to happen with the chemistry is what's going to happen. But it really is a young female lead opposite of Bumblebee, and I think that Optimus is going to be jealous that Bumblebee has his own movie."

The producer previously compared the Bumblebee film to The Iron Giant, and discussed the different angle the Transformers spinoff aims to tackle:

"There are less Transformers, dramatically less...We hired, purposely, Travis Knight who's a very distinct filmmaker. You can't compete with Michael [Bay], you're going to loose. Also, the audience want's something different all the time, let's keep them interested. So, they're going to get a very emotional, complex story. A very tight story, in terms of its location, in terms of its storytelling. In fact it reminds me a little bit of The Iron Giant when I did that movie at Warner Brothers. It just reminds me a little bit of that, where that it feels contained, but it doesn't feel small."

All in all, we can gather that the Bumblebee film will be less of a globe-spanning epic, and more of a character-driven story focusing on the relationship between the titular Autobot and its leading lady, whomever that may be. The tone will be light, and skew towards a younger age group. And set in the ’80s, it’ll have nods to the original Transformers cartoon — after all, Bumblebee has been confirmed to appear in his classic Volkswagen Beetle form in the film, just as he did on the classic animated show.

Directed by Travis Knight — known for family-friendly fair as the lead animator and CEO of Laika Entertainment and director of Kubo and the Two Strings — with a script by Christina Hodson, Bumblebee is expected to begin filming later this year for a projected 2018 release.