The title for the upcoming animated Transformers film which is set to release in theaters on July 19, 2024, has finally been announced. The prequel that is set to explore the early relationship between Optimus Prime and Megatron is officially titled Transformers One.
The announcement of the new title was made during the Paramount panel at CinemaCon, where Steve Weintraub is on the ground for Collider. The animated film was originally announced back in April 2020 that the film would be a prequel directed by Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley. While major details of the film are still being held under wraps, it has already been announced that the film will be a prequel taking place on the Transformers’ home planet of Cybertron. The film is set to be animated by legendary visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic, also known as ILM, who has worked on the live-action Transformers films with their previous animated film work including the 2012 Best Animated Feature Academy Award winner Rango.
Back in April, Weintraub had the chance to sit down for an interview with Lorenzo di Bonaventura, producer of both the upcoming animated film as well as the new live-action film Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,and gave some insight into the prequel and how both the setting of Cybertron and the connection between Optimus Prime and Megatron from their younger years shape the rest of the franchise. In the interview, he said:
“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… We’re not there for a short time, we’re there the entire time of the movie, we’re on Cybertron, but we are in the challenge that, if you know the lore, they begin to question the hierarchy of how their society has gotten stratified, and how the common man doesn’t have the voice, entirely, that they want to have. We’re following very true to the origin story of it, and so it’s really fun, too, because I’ve gotten to see some of it – it’s not fully executed by any stretch of the imagination, but hearing Optimus and Megatron not as who we know them as, which we see their maturation in this experience. So, in a sense, you’re hearing a different character because you’re hearing them before they have matured.”
The First Animated Transformers Film in Nearly 40 Years
The medium of animation has played a major role in the Transformers franchise as there have been several series over the decades about the robots in disguise including the much beloved The Transformers series that aired during the mid-80s. The impact of these numerous animated series is even making their impact on live-action films as the aforementioned Transformers: Rise of the Beasts which is set to be a soft reboot of the blockbuster franchise is taking heavy inspiration from the Beast Wars animated series that ran from 1996 to 1999. While there have been several animated series in the last few decades, this project will be the first feature film in the long-running franchise to be animated since the acclaimed 1986 film The Transformers: The Movie, which will be over 38 years old by the time that Transformers One releases in theaters.
Transformers One is set to release in theaters on July 19, 2024. For a lot more on what the new animated movie is about, head over to our exclusive conversation with di Bonaventura.
via Collider