The details of the seventh installment of the action
franchise were shared by director Steven Caple Jr and producer Lorenzo di
Bonaventura during a virtual event on Tuesday, according to The Hollywood
Reporter.
Set in Brooklyn, New York in the 1990s, the new movie will
bring back the familiar lead hero Optimus Prime, serving as a kind of origin
story for the character as he arrives on Earth for the first time and learns to
become a leader.
"I want to discover more about Optimus Prime, get underneath
the surface — get underneath the metal, if you would — and explore who he is
and his experience on Earth," said Caple Jr, who previously directed
Michael B Jordan-starrer "Creed II".
The film will draw from the "Beast Wars" animated
series which focused on robots who transform themselves into animals as opposed
to vehicles.
"There are different breeds of Transformers. In our
particular film, they are prehistoric animals who travel through time and
space, and we find them here on Earth," Caple Jr added.
The director also revealed that the movie will introduce the
Maximals, Predacons, and Terrorcons to the existing battle on earth between
Autobots and Decepticons.
"The Predacons in our film are more reptilian in nature.
We've seen a few in other Transformers films, but (in the new film), we get to
see another side of them. It's all about building a backstory to these
characters, and we'll see that more on the Predacon and Terracon side," he
added.
The main villain in the movie will be Scourge, known for
fusing parts of slain Transformers onto his own body.
The movie will also introduce two new human characters,
played by "In The Heights" star Anthony Ramos and "Judas and the
Black Messiah" actor Dominique Fishback.
Ramos, who will play Noah, a military veteran and
electronics wiz, said, "The one thing I love about Noah is his tenacity
and his heart and his will to never quit in spite of all the crazy things life
is throwing at him."
Fishback described her character as "an intelligent
artifact researcher".
"She works at the museum and she's trying to get a leg
up in life, but her boss keeps taking credit for the work that she's
done," the actor added.
"Transformers: Rise of the Beasts" is the seventh
chapter in the franchise after "Transformers" (2007),
"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" (2009), "Transformers:
Dark of the Moon" (2011), "Transformers: Age of Extinction"
(2014), "Transformers: The Last Knight" (2017) and spin-off
"Bumblebee" (2018).
The movie's script has been written by Darnell Metayer and
Josh Peters from an earlier draft by Joby Harold.
The film is scheduled to be released by Paramount Pictures
on June 24, 2022.