Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Director Breaks Down the Lethal Terrorcons

Soon, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts will begin principal photography and continue pushing the Hasbro franchise forward. Since Decepticons have served as the villains for the franchise’s first six movies, the filmmakers behind the latest project here opted to go a different route this time around. Enter, the Terrorcons and Predacons.

According to Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, the creatives behind Rise of the Beasts wanted to shake things up and move things in a new direction.

“Part of the new news is that if you’ve seen and been a fan of the other movies, you’re going to see villains you’ve ever seen before,” di Bonaventura said during a Transformers press event on Tuesday. “You’re going to see Autobots that you’ve never seen before. You’re going to see a lot of elements that we’ve never done before. And it’s one of the driving decisions that we are making along the way is, okay, have we done that before? Whether that’s an action scene or whether that’s a character.”

He added, “Fortunately for us, Transformers has, as Steven was saying, a lot of tribes and there’s a really large base of characters and there’s also a large base of fans that relate to those different tribes.”

That’s when director Steven Caple Jr. hopped in and mentioned he wanted to pay tribute to some of the toyline’s earliest characters.

“Like you got the Autobots and you got the Decepticons and then I would say my new flare to this whole thing would probably be the Terrorcons,” the filmmaker added. “I’ve done a Rocky film, I’ve done Creed 2, and so like trying to pay homage to everything is something that I’m big on. You know, it was like, let’s go on to style it with bring what the fans want, but then there’s always that, that thing they weren’t expecting.

“The Predacons in our film are more reptilian in nature. We’ve seen a few in the other Transformers films, but we’ve never had the chance to focus in on their logo, their tribe if you will, and we get to see another side to them,” Caple Jr. added. “It’s all about building a backstory to these characters that are more than just ‘let’s take over the world.’”

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is set in 1994 and will serve as a spiritual successor to 2018’s Bumblebee. It’s currently scheduled to hit theaters on June 24, 2022.