(2026) - FULL ENGSUB | Reelshort Hot HD
Full Chinese Movie EngSub
Chinese Drama English Sub Full HD
#shortdrama #bestdrama #actionmovie #Drama #Film #Show #Anime #Movie #cdrama #Movies #BILLIONAIRE #shortdrama #dramashort #shortfilmdrama #minidrama #shortstorydrama #webdrama #indiedrama #shortfilmseries #shortdramaseries #dramashorts #englishmovie #cdrama #drama #movieshortfull
#BillionaireObsession #VirginAuction #MrDelaney #AlphaRomance #DarkDesire #SoldToHim #DailymotionDrama
#goodfilms romance #bestfilmromance #romance #filmromance #drama romance
#fullmovie2025 #Dramavideo #trending
Full Chinese Movie EngSub
Chinese Drama English Sub Full HD
#shortdrama #bestdrama #actionmovie #Drama #Film #Show #Anime #Movie #cdrama #Movies #BILLIONAIRE #shortdrama #dramashort #shortfilmdrama #minidrama #shortstorydrama #webdrama #indiedrama #shortfilmseries #shortdramaseries #dramashorts #englishmovie #cdrama #drama #movieshortfull
#BillionaireObsession #VirginAuction #MrDelaney #AlphaRomance #DarkDesire #SoldToHim #DailymotionDrama
#goodfilms romance #bestfilmromance #romance #filmromance #drama romance
#fullmovie2025 #Dramavideo #trending
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:08Film after film, Transformers was proving to be Paramount's most powerful franchise.
00:14I think that's listed as one of the fan favorites. It's right up there.
00:17The franchise had been so successful, it made a lot of money.
00:21Fueled by the AllSpark.
00:23You hold the key to Earth's survival. We are here looking for the AllSpark.
00:28And a good amount of Bayhem.
00:30You're going the wrong way, the other way, other way.
00:34Lift him up again, do it again, do it again. Keep rolling.
00:38The Transformers universe appeared to be taking over the world.
00:42That Chinese market was super duper aware of American films and it wanted its hunk of it.
00:50But the fifth film would take a medieval turn.
00:53Die!
00:56Like, what?
00:58But in spite of its hefty budget, would be a blunder at the box office.
01:05It was a lot of movie, I think, for two hours.
01:08Nothing in that film was really good, nothing really landed.
01:11Hey, so are we nearing the end of the road with this thing?
01:14The box office spoke for it, the ratings spoke for it, the fans spoke for it.
01:17Yet, to make matters worse, old rumors about Michael Bay resurfaced.
01:22I think when we did the last one, I think we sensed, you know, that that was going to be
01:26the
01:26last one for Michael.
01:28I heard him saying he wasn't going to do it.
01:30You know, you say that sometimes when you are sick and tired of it.
01:33That this time might actually be true.
01:36He's like, hey, just here's the reigns and, you know, continue on with this amazing franchise.
02:14In 2017, Transformers The Last Knight was a flop.
02:18You gotta be kidding me.
02:19Nothing in that film was really good.
02:22Very mean.
02:23The box office spoke for it, the ratings spoke for it, the fans spoke for it.
02:26It's awful.
02:28It seemed that the sun had set on a franchise that Hasbro had hoped would go the distance.
02:34And I thought that the fourth one was going to be the last.
02:38Nope.
02:38Prior to its release, Paramount announced The Last Knight along with two more films.
02:43And for that, we can really thank Marvel.
02:46I am Iron Man.
02:48The Marvel universe spurs on the Transformers universe to keep creating new movies.
02:53And Marvel had created a lot of movies.
02:57Marvel sort of exploded and did five gazillion films.
03:00And in turn, Paramount was eager to make a gazillion Transformers movies.
03:05Are we talking about an invasion?
03:08Their worst fears were about to become a reality.
03:11What once were rumors now appeared to be true.
03:14Rumors no studio exec wants to hear.
03:17I heard him saying he wasn't going to do it.
03:20You know, you say that sometimes when you are sick and tired of it.
03:23Do you think I'm joking all the time?
03:24It seems Transformers was preparing to roll out without the father of the franchise.
03:30I think when we did the last one, I think we sensed that that was going to be the last
03:35one for Michael.
03:35Maybe a bit of fatigue, maybe you need a new voice coming in, and maybe it was, you know, exhaustion
03:45on our part.
03:46After more than a decade and five blockbuster films, Michael Bay was stepping away from the director's chair.
03:53He's on that movie for years, start to finish, you know?
03:56And he's probably tired of seeing robots after a while, too.
03:59Just when Paramount was gearing up for more Transformers...
04:02Roll out! We roll!
04:04The Transformers machine appeared to be powering down.
04:09Losing Michael Bay was a huge blow for Paramount.
04:13Here's his blockbuster director that basically created the universe and helmed the franchise to success at the box office.
04:20He is gone now, there's a creative vacuum, and remember, Paramount just announced there's going to be more films.
04:25So there was no going back now. Paramount was all in with at least two more films.
04:31But before they could hire a new director...
04:34They needed a script.
04:36Your world will be reborn.
04:38Paramount had said, we're going to have just a bunch of writers come in and do round tables.
04:44Paramount brought in some real heavy hitters.
04:46Spearheaded by Oscar winner Akiva Goldsman.
04:49There was Walking Dead's Robert Kirkman.
04:52And Black Hawk Down screenwriter Ken Nolan, who consequently wrote The Last Knight.
04:57Hey, you know there's a reward for turning you in.
04:58Really? Yeah.
04:59Cool, you want to get punched in the face like really hard?
05:02No.
05:03These were the more well-established writers in the room, but there were some up-and-coming talent as well.
05:08Fresh ideas are always good for a franchise.
05:10You need a lot of ideas.
05:12Throw everything at the wall, see what sticks.
05:13And some of the freshest and stickiest ideas came from one of the least established writers.
05:20Christina Hodson, after having her script The Eating Project included on the Black Lift, was invited to Paramount's writers room.
05:26You could say Christina's story was a bit of a departure from the typical Transformers spectacle.
05:31A little story that seemed to dovetail nicely with one of the littlest Autobots in the Transformers universe.
05:38Bumblebee.
05:38Bumblebee.
05:39Bumblebee.
05:39Bumblebee.
05:41He's so fun.
05:42To me, he's the coolest of them all.
05:44I love Bumblebee.
05:45He was always the one that was directly connected to the humans.
05:48And so that's what made him special.
05:50And he was little.
05:51He always had like a big heart.
05:53The script would serve as the prequel to the Transformers TV show set in the 1980s.
05:58And it returned to the core narrative that executive producer Steven Spielberg had envisioned since the beginning of the franchise.
06:06During the writing process, Spielberg encouraged Christina to create more of a coming of age film instead of a straight
06:12up action film.
06:13He really compared it more to E.T. and Spirit.
06:16Good.
06:18But instead of being about a boy and his alien.
06:20It's a story about a boy and his car.
06:22This time it would be about a girl and her car.
06:25Well, an alien car to be precise.
06:27Now I'm good, thanks.
06:29I love the fact that Christina Hudson based the character on her nieces.
06:34And the script is, you know, it's not all about robots fighting.
06:39Oh my god!
06:40I equate it to making almost Pretty in Pink with Transformers.
06:43Well, I'm the only one that comes in here.
06:45I don't even know how they're still open.
06:46The Bumblebee script was really a departure from the Transformers universe.
06:50It was smaller in scope.
06:51It was personal.
06:52It was really a fresh idea, but it was a risk for the studio.
06:56A risk Paramount would be taking without veteran director Michael Bay.
07:00Oh, what we would all give to have Prime back right now.
07:05Bay was across every aspect of the first five films, from casting to filming to editing.
07:10But now...
07:11He's like, here's the reins and, you know, continue on with this amazing franchise.
07:16It's madness.
07:18Those are just big shoes to fill.
07:20Luckily, Michael Bay would stay on as a producer.
07:23But it was veteran Transformers producer Lorenzo de Bonaventura who, on top of his many other responsibilities,
07:30had the tough task of finding a new director for Bumblebee.
07:33Lorenzo had worked with Michael on the previous Transformers movies and was a huge admirer of his.
07:38But the script for Bumblebee, with this coming-of-age story,
07:41didn't call for the Michael Bay typical explosions within the explosions style that he's known for.
07:47The script for Bumblebee needed a director adept at helming a character-driven movie with an emotional core.
07:54And there was one film that caught the eye of de Bonaventura and Spielberg.
07:59Well, hello, Kubo!
08:01Kubo on the Two Strings is a batta boy who has magical powers that goes on a quest to find
08:06his late father's magical armor.
08:08It's a sweet little film about self-discovery, family, and the power of storytelling.
08:12And it was directed by Travis Knight.
08:14Travis, the son of Nike founder Phil Knight, took an early interest in stop-motion animation
08:20and quickly rose up the ranks of Will Vinson Studios, a company his father invested in and later rebranded as
08:27Laika.
08:27Rumors were that he was kind of a rich kid and had somehow got this job.
08:32But the rumors were laid to rest when the Travis Knight-directed Kubo earned an Oscar nomination for the studio.
08:38Show off.
08:39Travis brought a lot of heart to that film.
08:42It was very personal, warm, intimate.
08:44It was a coming-of-age story.
08:46And that's exactly what he pitched to de Bonaventura.
08:48An emotionally resonant center to Bumblebee, which was right in line with the studio's vision.
08:53Like me?
08:54Yes.
08:55Strong.
08:55And clever.
08:57And funny.
08:58And oh, so handsome.
09:00De Bonaventura wanted Bumblebee's story to be character-driven and contained, but not small.
09:05Travis agreed, and they made a deal.
09:07With the film's director hired, De Bonaventura turned his attention to landing a different type of director.
09:13Director of photography, Enrique Chediac.
09:16Lorenzo called me and said, I have a movie that you might like.
09:19But I was a little bit reluctant to go into the Transformers world.
09:22And then I asked my agent who is the director, and he said, Travis Knight.
09:25Which, two weeks before, I saw Kubo with my daughter.
09:29And we loved it.
09:32I met Travis, and we hit it off, and Lorenzo was very adamant that I do the movie.
09:37So, you know, I ended up working on Transformers.
09:41Lorenzo had his man.
09:43We've been looking for you for so long.
09:46And his man's right-hand man.
09:48But the young director would face an uphill battle.
09:51Michael has done such a great job.
09:53Those are just big shoes to fill.
09:55He would be doing it with half the budget.
09:58You want to think that, oh, Transformers, big budget, ILM, you know, must have had the money.
10:02Everything was pretty tight.
10:07Fledgling director Travis Knight was taking over the Transformers franchise from a director so synonymous with creating the universe.
10:15Action!
10:16It was named after him.
10:17The Bayverse.
10:18Hand-tasked with reimagining a beloved character.
10:22And a theme.
10:23It's a story about a boy in his car.
10:25That Bay had driven to box office success.
10:28Oh, my God!
10:29But now Knight would have to do it with a sum that paled in comparison to his predecessors.
10:36They're 200-plus.
10:38The last Knight's budget was 217 million, to be exact.
10:42So how would Travis step out of the long shadow cast by Michael Bay and transform Transformers into something of
10:50his own?
10:51And Travis needed to find a lead with an it factor of her own.
10:56I'm the person for it.
10:58With a Golden Globe nomination at 17 and a standout performance in True Grit.
11:03Look here.
11:04I need a pony and I will pay $10 for one of them.
11:06Haley Steinfeld was the perfect choice.
11:09It made me feel like there was going to be more to the movie than we'd seen before because of
11:14that particular casting choice.
11:15You know, she's only gotten bigger. She was big then and has only gotten bigger.
11:19Gross, Ron.
11:20There is a vulnerability that she's a girl that has a lot of issues with her mother.
11:25So I'm sorry if that makes things harder, but in 10 months from now you won't even have to deal
11:30with me.
11:31And suddenly what brings happiness and joy to her life is Bumblebee.
11:36With their lead locked in, Knight turns to a very different kind of star.
11:41Someone who could bring both menace and muscle.
11:45I think coming from the wrestling world, I think he just comes from hard work.
11:49So he would always be on set. He would never go back to his trailer.
11:52I always remember that. He'd sit on set until he was up.
11:54You don't always see that.
11:56That's not a bad day at the office.
11:57And standing beside John as head of Sector 7, General Whelan was...
12:02Emmy award-winning actor Glenn Turman. And let that cover it all, okay?
12:08John, what I liked about his work ethic was that as staunch as he was, he didn't want it to
12:15be so serious.
12:16Ow! Just stop!
12:19We all kind of took Ali where the tone of the movie was.
12:24And this is a movie that's about fun.
12:27Have you lost your damn mind?
12:28With the human cast in place, how would Travis set himself apart from Bay and make his mark on the
12:35Transformers themselves?
12:36I have an idea.
12:38It's always a risk if you're going to take something that has a very established visual language and kind of
12:43change it.
12:43Michael Bay was the key person developing the Camaro Bumblebee for the first movie.
12:49But I have no idea why he didn't want to use the VW.
12:54But Travis did want to use the VW.
12:57What?
12:58No longer a Camaro.
13:00The Yellow Beetle, I want it.
13:01Bold Plan was reviving the look of G1 in a time when old beetles were a teenager's first car.
13:08Oh my God, thank you so much! I love you!
13:10Casting Bumblebee as a Volkswagen Beetle was a stroke of genius, honestly.
13:15Remember, this is a prequel, so it needs to have this 80s sort of aesthetic to it.
13:19The car itself looks more approachable, looks more friendly, looks more relatable and human.
13:24You still in there?
13:29Bumblebee was definitely awesome as a Camaro, and he was the cool kid.
13:34But you know what? Bumblebee as a Bug was a little more like a lot of us, you know, as
13:38we were growing up.
13:39Like, I was a VW Beetle more than I was a Camaro.
13:42So how would the new director's approach differ from his predecessor?
13:46You know, there's a whole chapter in here about how people who smile more often actually have more friends.
13:52They're very different styles.
13:53Michael's a bit more bombastic, he expected more intuition.
13:57Travis knows what he wants and he tells you.
13:59We're working on some of the different battle masks for him, what it could be like.
14:03He replied in an email, these are just horrible, these are just the worst.
14:08That was it!
14:10Relying less on Bayverse-style spectacle, the production had to find a way to make intimate scenes more realistic.
14:18Travis is a very hands-on, very practically-minded guy who would use CG when it needs to be CG.
14:24And I loved that. I mean, he's the owner of Laika Animation.
14:27He's an animator who animates with stop-motion puppets.
14:29We commissioned the upper torso of that character, practically made and practically painted.
14:34I think somewhere behind me, I've got the sample yellow spheres of the pristine paint and the banged-up paint.
14:40It was great.
14:42With Bumblebee now practically assembled, the voiceless little bugger needed a way to communicate.
14:48Do you speak?
14:50Luckily, the production had a secret weapon.
14:54I am the Idaho State Champion pantomime.
14:59Optimus Mime.
15:00Is there a nerdier thing to win, but it's all in the little things he does with his body and,
15:06you know, the way he moves his face.
15:08It has to be so expressive. He's got to say everything.
15:11For even more inspiration, Jason took off his black and white shirt to black and white cinema from Hollywood's silent
15:19era.
15:20We looked at Charlie Chaplin. We looked at Buster Keaton, because they had no other recourse either.
15:25They had no voice. They had to make it all work with their face.
15:28Are you scared?
15:31It's all in the eyes.
15:35When Bay was directing, the actors couldn't even see the Transformers' eyes.
15:39Trust me, I said.
15:40He made a 16-foot fiberglass scale of Bumblebee that was mostly just beneficial for camera blocking and to showcase
15:48how massive in scale he was from the movies.
15:51Knight's practical Bumblebee had large, expressive light-up eyes.
15:55He was smaller, rounder, more approachable. It made him more human.
15:59I don't know what he is, but he's my friend.
16:02A friend and an acting partner.
16:05This practical approach really helped with the performances as well, particularly with actors like Hailee Steinfeld, who had to have
16:11more intimate scenes with Bumblebee.
16:14The relationship felt more real and genuine.
16:17Thank you, Lord, for making me feel like me again.
16:24Haley Steinfeld is such an amazing actress. When you put her opposite the robot, she brought it to life.
16:31From practical robots, production turned their attention to practical locations in Northern California.
16:37One of the big references was the 80s. He was looking for a house. So we went to look and
16:42look and look for a lot of locations and we didn't find anything.
16:45So we found an empty spot close to San Francisco. So we built the exterior of the house and the
16:50garage in this beautiful location.
16:52And we built the house and the garage in the studio as well.
16:56Hmm. It looks familiar.
16:58Yes. A lot of Bumblebee references. A lot of Bumblebee references.
17:04But would Travis stick to the script?
17:07Travis, I think, wanted to do his own thing. Enrique was doing most of the work.
17:11You didn't know what a live action movie is like.
17:14Or would he and Lorenzo wind up on different pages?
17:18Travis wanted more the relationship movie and Lorenzo wanted more the action movie.
17:24Bumblebee director Travis Knight was stepping into big shoes.
17:28Those are big shoes to fill. Like, you're taking over a franchise of a guy that, I mean, just knows
17:33it.
17:34Although Michael Bay had stepped away from the director's chair for Bumblebee, he stepped up as a producer and the
17:40crew fully expected another Bayhem production.
17:43Michael has done such a great job. And I went in there thinking, oh, man, this is going to even
17:47be bigger.
17:49Well...
17:49Let's do this.
17:50It was really the opposite.
17:51And the opposite approach was apparent right from the opening scene.
17:56I had come up with all these crazy ideas, you know, jumping and all this authentic action.
18:00You've got to make it bigger. It's got to be cool, but it's got to be cooler than the last.
18:04Sounds transformery.
18:05He didn't want any of that. He was like, no, no, no, we're not going, we're not going that big.
18:09Travis, I think, wanted to do his own thing.
18:11The comparisons to Michael Bay were inevitable, but Travis had no option but to be, well, Travis. And doing his
18:19own thing meant falling back on his experience as an animator.
18:23Travis was completely different speed. Everything was very meticulous. Animation is just a different animal. I mean, they're doing everything
18:30frame by frame, but it's very mapped out. It's almost over mapped out.
18:35While Travis worked with the actors, longtime Bay collaborator De Bonaventura would have to keep an eagle eye on everything.
18:43He was always at every production meeting. He was very hands-on.
18:46He's every day on the set. He's every day giving notes. He's every day meeting with the writers.
18:52Because Lorenzo is not doing that to Bay, there's a different dynamic, you know what I mean?
18:55And even though Lorenzo hired Travis to direct an intimate coming-of-age story.
19:00Travis wanted more the relationship movie.
19:03He was beginning to question whether the film had all the right ingredients for the Transformers franchise.
19:09Lorenzo wanted a little bit more of the Transformers fights, the action movie.
19:14Action versus intimacy. Director versus producer.
19:18And you can also feel the excitement of Travis when he was with the robot and the girl. And he
19:22was a little less excited when he was doing the big things. And Lorenzo was super excited.
19:27I didn't do much with Travis at all. The big battle at the end was a big dry dock area.
19:32There's a lot of stuff with the helicopter. Enrique was doing most of the work.
19:36Were Lorenzo and Travis coming apart at the seams?
19:39There's always in the set that thing, you know, that you can feel. But it speaks a lot that Lorenzo
19:44hired Travis.
19:45It was two aspects of Bumblebee. One was the relationship between the girl and the robot. And the other one
19:51was saving the world.
19:52There was a balance. Travis and Lorenzo, they reached a nice compromise.
19:57As principal photography for Bumblebee wrapped in November of 2017...
20:02Goodbye, Bumblebee.
20:04The baton was passing to ILM, who were working with a smaller budget on a less robot-heavy movie.
20:11There was definitely a difference there. And that difference was that we did tend to respect the designs, which were
20:17less pieces.
20:18It was way less robots that we were designing. A much more focused experience.
20:22And you would think, well, great. You just saved a bunch of money, right?
20:25It costs a million dollars to transform one of these characters.
20:28It will bankrupt us to animate this many robots.
20:30So, less robots, less stress, right?
20:34No.
20:35Because now, everybody's looking at those pieces very specifically. If you just got all the pieces and it's like 19
20:41of them, then you better know what you're doing with every one of those.
20:45That intricate detail in those soft spaces is really what makes this design of Transformer movie robots stand out.
20:54But not every Bumblebee scene made the cut.
20:59Travis was constantly pulling inspiration from Spielberg's playbook.
21:03A lot of Bumblebee references.
21:05And while some of those ideas felt fresh, others were things the audience had seen before.
21:10He puts his energy in the house and a few of those appliances start getting alive, yeah.
21:15I think there was a washing machine or something or a dishwasher.
21:20Like Charlie's forehead, the scene was cut because it was deemed to be a direct copy of Revenge of the
21:26Fallen.
21:31But one of the most dramatic changes came straight from the top.
21:35Lorenzo is a producer in the movie. You know, he comes with great pedigree from running a studio.
21:40Lorenzo decided he'd see what a test audience would make of an early cut of Bumblebee.
21:45And the feedback was...
21:48Not good.
21:50Audiences loved John Cena.
21:52So Lorenzo ordered a whole new scene to be written and shot for the start of the film.
21:57Basically, the reasons were because of him. To tell his story, right? At the beginning.
22:03And I think they had to humanize him a little bit more.
22:07Oh, I hate you. That hurts.
22:08Because I love you.
22:10Sort of fitting a character to the actor's strengths is always a good idea if it works in the story.
22:15And I think it did.
22:16Danny, I know I look stupid.
22:18Test audiences were also shocked about the lack of Transformers in a Transformers movie.
22:25I mean, Bumblebee was always kind of a different movie in a way that we were missing a little chunk
22:31of action.
22:31It was Lorenzo de Bonaventura that actually came forward and said, this would really help if we can add some
22:37action at the beginning of the movie so that people get like, this is a Transformers movie.
22:41It was very late in the schedule. It was impossible.
22:45But it was also Christmas morning because we were going to be given the reins to create Cybertron.
22:53Even if Prime couldn't save Cybertron, it was up to ILM to create a Cybertron scene that might save the
23:00movie.
23:01There was no other choice. We had to say yes and we had to succeed. There was some budget given
23:05because we had to pull people back. It wasn't extravagant.
23:09Bumblebee would now start with the scene depicting the civil war on Cybertron.
23:14But would it be enough to make the film a success at the box office?
23:19We will fight on, but we must find refuge first.
23:22And usher in a new post Michael Bay world led by Travis Knight.
23:27You couldn't say no to it and you couldn't fail.
23:30Bumblebee landed in December of 2018.
23:34But would Travis Knight's heartfelt story coupled with Lorenzo de Bonaventura's spectacle resonate with audiences?
23:41There was a sweetness about the Bumblebee movie.
23:44I think you connect in a way that you maybe don't with some of the Michael Bay films.
23:50I know the sequence on Cybertron from Bumblebee is a massive fan favorite.
23:54Contact with the Capitol!
23:55There's too many of them!
23:56What it turned into is every scene that we wanted to see as kids.
24:01On December 21st 2018, Bumblebee rolled into theaters and was a hit.
24:07With worldwide theatrical earnings of $468 million and an estimated production budget of less than $135 million, Bumblebee was a
24:17critical and financial success for Paramount.
24:20The movie did make enough to keep the franchise rolling.
24:23Paramount said, okay, cool.
24:25You can go.
24:25You can do your own thing.
24:28But the studio wanted them doing Marvel's thing.
24:31Paramount's bid to build the Transformers universe to rival Marvel's turned into a soft mid-series reboot, one that got
24:38the franchise back on track.
24:40So in early 2020, Paramount Studios brought in writers to Kobe Herald and James Vanderbilt to each write a script
24:45with one directive to expand the universe to include characters from the Transformers Beast Wars series from the 90s.
24:52All right! He's coming back!
24:53The studio expanded the universe with new factions like the Maximals, the core of Beast Wars, who landed on prehistoric
25:00Earth and transformed into, well, beasts.
25:03Cheetor, maximize!
25:06It was the first time we did 3D animation in a Transformers Hasbro property.
25:10The TV show was crude, but it was a mountain of new IP that Paramount intended to mine for its
25:17present-day universe.
25:18Paramount went with Joby Herald's script that preserved the Bumblebee tone and timeline and introduced a new breed of Transformers.
25:30Beast Wars was in, but the stars of Bumblebee were out.
25:35Rise of the Beast takes place seven years after Bumblebee, so the cast didn't include actors such as Haley or
25:41John Cena.
25:42Well, at least Paramount had locked in Travis to direct, and he was set to roll cameras in early 2020.
25:49Until he wasn't.
25:50Night's Vision clashed with the franchises, so he returned to Laika to focus on animation.
25:56But the studio landed a hot new director in Steven Capel Jr.
26:00This is the first film that he had any knowledge of visual effects in.
26:03Whoops!
26:04I think for a Transformers franchise, that is detrimental.
26:07But he was fresh off of helming Creed II, which took home a worldwide gross of $214 million bucks with
26:15a measly production budget of $50 million.
26:18Just like Bumblebee, it was a financial and critical hit.
26:22Steven could do drama, but could he recreate Bay-era action?
26:26Which is exactly what producer De Bonaventura thought was missing from Bumblebee.
26:31So, their new director brought in his writers to blow up the script in a good way.
26:37They told us they wanted to have a bold vision with Transformers and open it up, make it a bigger
26:41scope, add a little bit more world building.
26:44A lot more world building. The producers wanted Rise of the Beast to build on Bumblebee and connect to the
26:50Bay films.
26:51It was an explosive page one rewrite that would take time to craft.
26:56We looked at it as kind of an origin story to Transformers growing to love Earth.
27:01And wanting to also bring in a lot of elements from the 1986 version of Transformers.
27:06Look! It's Unicron!
27:08Specifically, a planetary-sized Transformer from the G1 cartoon. Who eats planets?
27:14Unicron. When can we bring Unicron? How can we see more of this?
27:17Awaken, almighty Unicron. Your time has come.
27:20Rise of the Beast was becoming a beast. All the world building and world devouring and bridging and sequeling and
27:28prequeling and homaging was a lot to cram into a 120-something page script.
27:34Well, at least with ILM, they wouldn't have to worry about visual effects.
27:38We couldn't do it.
27:40Paramount wanted to premiere Rise of the Beast in June of 2022, which only gave ILM one year to do
27:47the VFX.
27:48ILM was super busy at that point as well, coming in off the back of COVID.
27:51They basically turned around and said, like, we're too busy. You know, the budget's not big enough. We don't have
27:55enough time to do it.
27:56You know, you just couldn't quite make it all work.
27:59ILM wouldn't bite on the condensed schedule. But luckily, over in London, the moving picture company was ready to take
28:09it on.
28:09Beast Sports, I didn't really look into it too much.
28:12Maybe they weren't ready.
28:14I was aware of it, but not something that I was, like, you know, a huge fan of.
28:17Transformers had a new director and a new script that was bursting at the seams with a new VFX company
28:24in London.
28:25Still, the producers had a clear direction.
28:27So they wanted a bit of a balance between what Michael Bay had done for his franchise and Bumblebee as
28:34well.
28:35What are you?
28:36And so it was a bit of a mishmash between the both to try and get that sweet spot.
28:40The producers were convinced that the sweet spot between explosions and a heartfelt storyline would make Rise of the Beast
28:47a hit.
28:48But the timeline for the VFX wasn't sweet at all.
28:51We were actually briefed saying that, like, you have one year to complete it, which is a very, very condensed
28:56timeline for a film of that scale.
28:58These are my fellow Maximals.
29:00The Maximals were very interesting because they were the thing that made this film unique.
29:04Our leader, Optimus Primal.
29:06That name rings a bell.
29:09Autobots, roll out!
29:11So how did MPC come up with such an OP design for Optimus Primal?
29:16Basically, we were told, giant gorilla.
29:20And he's almost always in his actual beast mode.
29:23As for the human actors, Dominique Fishback was cast as the budding young archaeologist Elena Ramos.
29:29Are you even pushing?
29:31Yeah, I'm pushing.
29:32And Anthony Ramos would play Noah Diaz.
29:35Don't forget to laugh at all their jokes.
29:38Why people love that shit.
29:42But with all of these additions, there was a major subtraction from Rise of the Beast.
29:48Hell well, two we got here.
29:50For this film, they wanted to change it up.
29:52They didn't want Bumblebee in the spotlight.
29:53They wanted Mirage to be in the spotlight.
29:56The name's Mirage.
29:57There you go.
29:58Now we're friends.
29:59Pete Davidson, wow.
30:01Optimus!
30:02Hey man!
30:03You're looking good!
30:03I think it's informative casting of like, who can we hire to be legit excited about being
30:09in a Transformers movie and would bring in a new crowd of people.
30:12Mirage, not Bumblebee, was the new face of the franchise.
30:16I like that.
30:17I like it a lot.
30:18I'd seen Pete Davidson on Saturday Night Live, but I was like,
30:21oh, you know, Mirage, like he's a wisecracker, but his character has some real gravitas,
30:25especially towards the end.
30:27You know, what's that gonna look like?
30:29Autobots, roll out!
30:30Pete Davidson wrote this different kind of energy and enthusiasm to the character.
30:34They didn't treat ET like this.
30:36If they wanted to keep the emotional heart and weight of the Bumblebee story into Beast Wars,
30:42they negated that the second they hired a comedian to do one-liners.
30:46Cross my spark and hope to die.
30:48Wow, that was corny when I said it out loud.
30:53The fifth installment of the Transformers franchise, Rise of the Beast, had big and small shoes to fill.
31:00I think that we have an opportunity here to start anew and develop our relationship.
31:05So it was a little bit of both.
31:06They wanted what Michael Bay had done and what Mike had done for Bumblebee as well.
31:12But there was some confusion as to what it actually was.
31:16We knew this was a continuation of the Transformers, but also somewhat of a reboot as well.
31:21So sequel, reboot, or that mysterious gray area where studios like to live.
31:27Canon for, you know, Bumblebee and also a 2007 series.
31:30It needed to be seven years after Bumblebee, but we had to keep the continuity of the Bayverse.
31:36It was a little bit of a gray area for us, which was a bit weird.
31:39What the hell am I looking at?
31:40Rise of the Beast needed to thread a rather narrow needle to tie the Transformers universes together
31:46and finally launch its cinematic universe.
31:52Principal photography began on June 7th, 2021 in Los Angeles, then moved to New York City.
31:58Technically, it was Montreal doubling as Brooklyn.
32:02And just a few weeks into filming, Paramount announced that Rise of the Beast would premiere the following year on
32:08June 24th, 2022.
32:10None of the Transformers films in history were made in one year.
32:13So I don't know why they thought this one they would be able to make in one year.
32:16After wrapping in New York, Canada, the cast and crew flew to Peru in early October of 2021 on time
32:24and on schedule.
32:25Crew morale was high heading into Peru and it looked like they were going to make their deadline.
32:29Even with no VFX experience, the looming one year deadline seemed attainable for new director Steven.
32:37He even had master of the Bayverse executive producer Michael Bay in his corner.
32:41But the weather was unpredictable and shut down filming for days on end.
32:47It keeps raining and stopping and raining and stopping.
32:50And what threatened to sink the production was the unpredictable storyline.
32:55Every week there was a new script. Every week there were new scenes that we never...
32:58So we were planning for something.
33:00And the next week, everything I planned, through the trash. Let's plan for something else.
33:04The production was falling behind and the changes were coming from De Bonaventura.
33:09I think there is a bigger scope.
33:12Maximize!
33:12You want a lot of robots, much more robots.
33:17You want a lot of fights, much closer to a Michael Bay movie.
33:22It was huge. It was much bigger than, much bigger than Bumblebee.
33:25The original plan for Rise of the Beast was to keep what worked in Bumblebee.
33:30Thank you for giving me my voice.
33:32And then take the action up a notch to satisfy the Bayverse fans.
33:37I have come here to kick ass.
33:40But somewhere along the line, they just cranked up the spectacle.
33:46It was very complicated.
33:47At the end we did it, but it was not easy.
33:50It was not easy at all.
33:52Miraculously, Rise of the Beast completed filming on October 20th, 2021.
33:58On time, but over budget.
34:00The script changes blew up the production.
34:02But they had even greater financial consequences for the VFX house back in London, MPC.
34:10These things are costly, you know.
34:12You can change one simple thing in the story.
34:15And for you, it might just be writing a couple lines of script.
34:17But down the line, that could be tens of millions of dollars in VFX changes.
34:21MPC had just one year to complete the visual effects for Rise of the Beast.
34:26So, spending time and money on deleted scenes put the 2022 premiere in serious jeopardy.
34:33Meanwhile, there were other bigger problems.
34:35The big plane.
34:39All that.
34:40Stratosphere.
34:41This was by far our biggest character.
34:43Lord of the skies!
34:45He was actually such a big character that our technology systems couldn't actually handle him.
34:49There was actually a lot of back and forth between us and the software team to upgrade our technology systems
34:55to actually pump him through.
34:57Yeah, I'm walking to Peru.
34:59Deleted scenes and costly tech upgrades were a painful setback for MPC.
35:04But Michelle Yao's metallic golden eagle was pure agony.
35:08Eraser was the biggest pain for this entire film.
35:13She had the least developed concept art.
35:16Just basically a very rough sketch.
35:18What is this symbol?
35:19It is the maximal crest.
35:21It is all that I have left.
35:23We spent a lot of time redesigning the concept art that we were given and no one was happy with
35:28it because she looked like a big golden pigeon.
35:30But I'll be alright.
35:32I personally spent nearly a year just on that one character.
35:37But MPC had only one year to do all of the VFX.
35:41As we started building the characters and we started doing the things that we needed to do, the studio Paramount
35:46actually realized that this is not possible in one year.
35:49In November of 2021, Paramount announced that Rise of the Beast would be delayed a full year to June 2023.
35:57This caused a ripple effect across Paramount's release schedule.
36:01And when the film limped into theaters that summer, COVID still had the world on pause.
36:06Ticket sales were down from all the studios as moviegoers stayed home and stayed safe.
36:12Director Steven had survived the Peruvian jungle.
36:15Massive script changes and unrealistic deadlines.
36:18Everything that he went through to actually get this thing made is an incredible success on that part from the
36:24financial standpoint.
36:25But ultimately, Rise of the Beast couldn't survive its target audience.
36:29Fans didn't really care about the direction it was going.
36:32And I don't think Michael Bay even cared about the direction that was going either.
36:35I didn't hear anything about Michael Bay or Steven's involvement in this film.
36:39And I think that really shows in the box office as well.
36:42The Transformers will return after these messages.
36:48Rise of the Beast was a Bumblebee sequel meant to reboot the franchise, connect the Bayverse to the Bumbleverse, and
36:55finally launch its own cinematic universe.
36:58Paramount pinned the future of the franchise on Rise of the Beast.
37:01They needed the movie to do a lot of things at once, and I think that was the cause of
37:06the downfall.
37:07So, with lofty goals, Rise of the Beast premiered on June 9th of 2023, but grossed just $442 million worldwide.
37:16Close to what Bumblebee grossed, but on a Bay budget of $200 million, it was the lowest grossing live action
37:23film in franchise history.
37:25And there were reasons, starting with no Michael at the helm.
37:28He knows how to make a film that is, you know, marketable, a massive blockbuster.
37:33He makes his movies for the movie-going audience.
37:36Wants to entertain, and he's relentless about that.
37:40Jacques, make it more interesting, your first frame. It's pretty boring, dude.
37:43He's a master at creating these experiences.
37:50This film, I don't think we can say the same thing.
37:52By Bayverse Staniards, Rise of the Beast was a financial failure.
37:56The response was, meh.
37:58I mean, nobody hated it, but nobody loved it either.
38:01They didn't really have a super clear vision for what they wanted.
38:05It was a lot of movie, I think, for two hours.
38:08The movie aimed to unify the series.
38:15While resurrecting characters from a 90s franchise.
38:18Who are you?
38:19And an earth-eating villain from the G1 universe.
38:23All these things didn't really make much sense, didn't really carry much weight.
38:26Like, more and more and more maybe isn't always better.
38:28Everybody just kept getting, some would say, greedy.
38:31If we just throw more and more in, we have more opportunity to do more stuff.
38:37And they rushed it. That's a big mistake.
38:39I never should have taken us so far from home.
38:43The lackluster box office and lack of fan interest,
38:46plus Paramount's $8 billion merger with Skydance,
38:50signaled trouble for the franchise.
38:52And the end of Paramount's hopes for the Transformers cinematic universe.
38:56Still a fan of Transformers, but the movie universe
38:59just doesn't have the story connective tissue that I look for in a franchise.
39:04The most successful cinematic universes are universes where there's a lot of different things happening
39:09in different worlds, different characters, completely different things,
39:12and you can tie them together.
39:13It has to be an overarching theme across all of the films,
39:16which I think Transformers doesn't have.
39:18You haven't heard the last of Megatron!
39:20So is the dream of a live-action Transformers universe
39:24That's probably just a dumb old dream.
39:27really over?
39:27Hang on to your dreams, Chip.
39:29The future is built on dreams.
39:32Hang on.
39:33I think they need a very strong reboot.
39:36Nothing to do with any of the films that currently exist.
39:38Get a fresh take on the franchise.
39:40You might want to wait a little while.
39:42See how the industry kind of shifts.
39:46Hasbro has learned it's constant change that we're living in.
39:51So you've got to measure the market and know when's the next time you get to reinvent yourself.
39:56Because after all, transformation is what endeared us to the toys, the cartoon, and the comics in the first place.
40:04It's about the stuff of life.
40:06Transformation.
40:07Wait, I still thought...
40:10Transforming is what we do.
40:12That is what we wish to do as children.
40:15Every kid recognizes that.
40:17That's the appeal.
40:20And the toys are great.
40:23The secret of a success is basically the toy itself and the storyline that's been developed around it.
40:28That pulls people in.
40:29They just want to know more and more about these crazy characters.
40:33We grew up on them.
40:34Our kids are going to grow up on them.
40:35Their kids are going to grow up on them.
40:36And it speaks to the strength of, you know, the initial characters that were conceived in the cartoon.
40:40It's over, Prime.
40:42I never thought and ever imagined back in the 1980s when I was working on this,
40:46that I would still be talking about it 40 years later.
40:49We didn't know that it would have a life that would go on decade after decade.
40:53I realized that whatever it was we did, it resonated.
40:58The Transformers rolled out in the 80s.
41:01And four decades later, they're still trucking.
41:07A creative achievement shared by everyone who shaped the Transformers universe along the way.
41:13A lot of people take credit for creating the Transformers.
41:18And the truth is that a lot of people had a part of it.
41:21Whatever we did at the beginning, whatever we infected that with, it stuck.
41:25Because everybody seemed to love it and care and make it mean something.
41:30And so, good job everybody.
41:59wiMixBots.com
42:01It's a great day, everybody.
42:02lor, RoL, RoL .
42:02And the andes.
Comments