Transformers is among the many popular movie franchises jumping into the cinematic universe game. While the main series starring the robots in disguise continues this summer with Transformers: The Last Knight. Paramount has also been working on a spinoff centered around Bumblebee, one of the main Autobot protagonists. Today brings arguably the biggest news yet regarding the spinoff, as the man who directed Kubo and the Two Strings has been tapped to helm Bumblebee's solo adventure.
Deadline dropped the news that Travis Knight will direct the Bumblebee spinoff. Kubo and the Two Strings marked Knight's directorial debut, meaning that the Bumblebee movie will be his first time overseeing a live action movie, albeit one which will feature a lot of CGI. The spinoff's script was penned by Shut In screenwriter Christina Hodson, who is also working on Gotham City Sirens for Warner Bros and DC. Lorenzo Di Bonaventure, Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg are attached to the Bumblebee movie as producers.
Although Travis Knight is early into his directing career, he's been involved in the movie-making business for many years through his work as an animator. Since 2005, he's been working at Laika, the studio behind Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls and, most recently, Kubo and the Two Strings. Slowly rising through the ranks, Knight is now the president and CEO of Laika. Stepping into the world of Transformer will be a major departure from the content Knight usually works on, but given the accolades Kubo and the Two Strings received (including two Academy Award nominations), his hiring hopefully bodes well, especially since this will be the first time anyone other than Michael Bay has directed a live action Transformers movie.
Bumblebee has been part of the Transformers movie series since it launched in 2007, serving as the most prominent Autobot behind Optimus Prime. Besides his distinctive yellow paint job, Bumblebee is best known for primarily communicating through playback of radio and television signals. For the first three Transformer movies, he effectively served as Sam Witwicky's protector, and in Transformers: Age of Extinction, he became the leader of the Autobots after Optimus Prime ventured into space. The trailer for Transformers: The Last Knight implies that Bumblebee will meet a horrible fate at Optimus Prime's hands, but obviously it's either not as bad as it looks or can be easily fixed since he's leading a movie only a year later.
The Bumblebee spinoff is slated to hit theaters on June 8, 2018, and before that, you can see Bumblebee back in action when Transformers: The Last Knight is released on June 23. Let us know what you think of Travis Knight taking the directing reins in the comments below.
