With just over two months left until the fifth entry in the “Transformers” series "Transformers: The Last Knight" debuts, Entertainment Weekly has lifted the hood and given us a first look at one of the new Autobots set to join the movie -- the one and only Hot Rod.
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For newcomers to the world of Transformers, Hot Rod first appeared in the 1986 animated film and was dubbed the new leader of the Autobots following the death of Optimus Prime. In “The Last Knight," it’s revealed that Hot Rod has been protecting Viviane Wembly (played by Laura Haddock) for years, disguising himself as a 1963 Citroën DS.
When describing the car, Haddock calls it “a rickety old thing," but acknowledges the sentimental value of it, saying “she can’t part with it because she adores it.” The car looks to tie-in to the story in a big way, as Haddock reveals it’s been feeding information to Anthony Hopkins' character throughout her entire life. “This car has actually been put there to watch her and feedback information to Anthony Hopkins’s character about what she’s up to and her life. So yeah, she gets kind of taken [by surprise] in a really funny, dramatic way by this Hot Rod.”
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With his inclusion into the live-action film series, fans are now wondering if this might be the studio foreshadowing that the Prime we’ve come to love will meet his end in “The Last Knight,: Anyone worried about this probably has little to fret about, however; while Prime may be out of commission for the beginning of the film, it would be odd to suddenly take him out now, especially with multiple spin-off films planned for the robotic franchise.
Directed by Michael Bay, “Transformers: The Last Knight” stars franchise veterans Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson and John Turturro, joined by newcomers Isabela Moner, Liam Garrigan, Jerrod Carmichael, Mitch Pileggi, Laura Haddock, Santago Cabrera and Anthony Hopkins. The film opens June 23.