Bumblebee Producers Talks Impact of Film on Franchise and Plans for Future Films in Series

Bumblebee producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura recently spoke about the future of the Transformers franchise in an interview with /Film. Bumblebee is the first film in the franchise to be a hit with critics, debuting at a near unprecedented 100 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. While many media analysts say that Bumblebee is a chance to “reboot” the series, Di Bonaventura said that he looks at the film as a way to move the franchise in a new direction. Confessing on The Guardian that he hates the word reboot, Di Bonaventura told reporters that Bumblebee is a chance to change the audience’s viewing experience. The producer told /Film that future big budget Transformers films are being planned and that the critical success of Bumblebee allows the creative team a chance to move in a different direction.

Di Bonaventura has been with the Transformers franchise since the first film in the series was released in 2007. When speaking on the criticism the first film received, Di Bonaventura explained that he felt it was rooted in fan expectations. In Di Bonaventura’s thinking, fans went into the film thinking they’d have a story similar to the 1980s cartoon series. Fans reacted negatively when the tone of the film was different from their beloved childhood series. Di Bonaventura defended the choices of the film’s creative team, saying that if the movie was more in sync with the cartoon series, fans would have complained that it was too similar. The producer confessed that the hardest part of his job was to balance fan expectations with making a movie that will be groundbreaking and offer audiences a once in a lifetime experience.

While Di Bonaventura might place the blame for the franchise’s poor reception on fan expectations, much of the criticism directed at the franchise centers around director Michael Bay. Bay directed all five previous films in the series. Among fan criticisms of Bay’s filmmaking style are oversexualizing female cast members and relying too much on action sequences instead of good storytelling. For Bumblebee, director Travis Knight was brought on board by the studio, greatly changing the tone of the series. Critics have praised Knight’s work, noting how it resembles the classic storytelling of Steven Spielberg’s 80s science fiction films.

Bumblebee opens on December 21, 2018 and stars Hailee Steinfeld, Dylan O’Brien, and John Cena.