Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Director and Producer Tease G.I. Joe Crossover (Exclusive)
Spoilers for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts incoming! If you have yet to see the latest film in the franchise, proceed with caution! After years in development, it looks like the Hasbro Cinematic Universe is finally on the way. Though the toymaker has worked with films based on its toys for decades, the events of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts directly sets up a crossover between the Transformers and GI Joe franchises.
At the end of Beasts, Michael Kelly appears as a mysterious government agent as he hands a business card to Anthony Ramos' Noah Diaz. On that business card, it's revealed Kelly's character works for GI Joe. Speaking with Rise of the Beasts producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, it was simply a matter of time before the crossover happened.
"We've talked about it since the beginning of the franchise because the fans have been like, 'Come on, when you are going to do Joe?!,' and the truth of the matter is there's so many great Transformers characters that we didn't feel like we needed to rush and do GI Joe," di Boneventura tells us. "But you also want an organic way ootherwise it feels like a cynical exercise."
He adds, "What happened here was by creating a character, Anthony's character, that can't get a job. The world is not easy on him and at the end of this movie, he gets offered the greatest job ever. That's really how it happened, we finally found a way to organically bring it in."
Beasts helmer Steven Caple Jr. echoed the sentiment, saying he was hoping to get an organic way to tie the two franchise together, which manifested in the form of a movie-long job search.
"When developing his character, I thought it'd be nice if the organization was the one to come say they're taking care of his problems since he had issues with it at first," Caple tells us. "I was going through these organizations and GI Joe was really strong. I remember going through the graphic novel and comic book and presenting it to the studio and the team, I felt like I saw their eyes light up. It just opens doors for where we want to go next."
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which debuted on June 9th, is the seventh movie in the live-action Transformers franchise. Inspired by the fan-favorite reboot of the series, the iconic Beast Wars, the movie is a globetrotting adventure set in the 1990s complete with an era-specific soundtrack. Peter Cullen returns to voice Optimus Prime in the new movie, appearing alongside other Autobots and Decepticons including Bumblebee and Pete Davidson as Mirage. Other factions from the Transformers franchise like the Maximals, Predacons, and Terrorcons will also appear, with Ron Perlman set to voice the gorilla-inspired Optimus Primal. Directed by Creed II's Steven Caple Jr. the film stars Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback on the human side with Oscar-winner Michelle Yeoh voicing the Maximal Airazor.