‘Bumblebee’ Officially Confirmed to Reboot the Transformers Movies

It’s official: the Bumblebee movie is, in fact, a reboot of the Transformers film franchise.

The announcement came at the New York Toy Fair 2019 on Saturday with Hasbro officially declaring the film as “a new storytelling universe” (via TFW2005).

Released in December 2018, the film was presented as a spin-off/prequel film for the franchise of five films directed by Michael Bay. However, with Travis Knight directing Bumblebee, many fans questioned if the film was really a quiet reboot rather than a spin-off. Now it’s clear that those fans were correct.

Now that it’s been confirmed that Bumblebee is start of a reboot for the franchise, it sheds a bit of light on franchise producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura’s announcement earlier this year that there will be more films going forward, thanks in part to the success of Bumblebee.

“We had many objectives [including] to bring a new set of families into the series, and that succeeded; in the after markets that will continue to succeed in a big way,” Bonaventura said.

“Part of our obligation was to bring people back who had left the franchise or never experienced it which worked well… We are finding our way. Our intention was we wanted to please the core fans but also bring a new audience.”

With Bumblebee bringing over $458 million at the box office worldwide, the film certainly did please core fans and bring in a new audience. The film also did well with critics, sitting at a 93 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer. That number makes Bumblebee the sole franchise installment to boast a reception that isn’t “rotten”.

While there haven’t been any clear plans laid out for just what the reboot of the Transformers franchise will look like, Bonaventura has said that he would “certainly like to do” a film focusing on popular Transformer Optimus Prime, something that seems a lot more possible now thanks to Bumblebee’s success.

“[Optimus is] a stoic leader, and you can count on him,” Bonaventura said before adding that Bumblebee is “the one who is more emotionally volatile. He has a lot of ups and downs. SO it seemed like the best character to try for the first time zeroing in on one Autobot.”

Bumblebee hits digital release on March 19th, followed by 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on April 2nd.

Are you excited that Bumblebee has been confirmed as a reboot of Transformers? Let us know in the comments below.

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