Bumblebee Prepares for a New Transformers Adventure

Paramount has released a new poster and photo from Bumblebee. The upcoming Transformers spin-off has a pretty big hill to climb, in terms of what it needs to accomplish. The previous movie in the franchise, 2017's The Last Knight, was rejected by critics and saw a lot of moviegoers abandon ship and opt not to check it out in theaters. Now, the studio has decided to scale things back and give everyone's favorite yellow Autobot a chance to shine. This new poster and the latest image continue to serve as encouragement that this may be just what the franchise needs right now.

This latest poster has a similar vibe to the previously released theatrical poster. It's very much a "girl and her car" sort of thing with some old school Amblin vibes going on. Bumblebee and Hailee Steinfeld's Charlie are overlooking a city at night from a vantage point in the mountains. It's hard not to think of E.T. just a little bit. And if you must compare a movie to something, that's not a bad place to start.
As for the new image, it's pretty charming. We see Bumblebee hanging out in a very 80s house and doing his best to politely fit in, quite literally. He's sitting on a couch but, as you can see, it's not going perfectly well. Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura also had this to say about the spin-off, emphasizing that this movie is going to be much smaller in scope than the previous few Transformers movies have been.

"A giant chunk of our movie is about his relationship with Charlie [Steinfeld], and as it goes on he makes a total mess of her house. He's intrigued by her dog. And it's funny to watch her turn him onto '80s culture."

Travis Knight, known best for his work on the critically-heralded animated movie Kubo and the Two Strings, is in the director's chair for the spin-off. This marks the first time in the history of the franchise that someone other than Michael Bay is at the helm. Considering how poorly the last few movies have been received, getting some new blood and fresh eyes on the robots in disguise probably isn't a bad thing. It also helps that there will only be a few Decepticons to contend with. It's not going to be a ridiculous tangle of robot after robot like we're accustomed to.

 

John Cena is also on board alongside Hailee Steinfeld as the human villain, who has been described as "grey," meaning he's not an outright dastardly bad guy. Bumblebeeis set to arrive in theaters on December 21 on the same day that Warner Bros. plans to unleash Aquaman on the world, which means it's going to be a tough competition between two big blockbusters that weekend. You can check out the brand new image, courtesy of Empire, as well as the new poster, for yourself below.