Transformers One London advance screening

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On June 12 2024, Paramount Pictures and Substance Global held a long lead press junket for the upcoming Transformers One at the Ham Yard Hotel in London, flying in producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura and director Josh Cooley to present a work-in-progress screening of the film. TFWiki representatives Broadside and SpeedFreak01 were invited to interview both Lorenzo and Josh about the production of the film, with questions sourced from users on the TFWiki Discord server!

Interview with Lorenzo di Bonaventura

  • TFWIKI: How has your experience working as a producer on the Transformers films changed since the original movie, back in 2007?
DI BONAVENTURA: Wow. Um, I've gotten to know the characters more, and so it's allowed me to think more about the possibilities of how the stories can expand. You know, you learn tricks, in how they move, how they... and so some of the hurdles in the early thing are gone, so then new hurdles come in, you know? And so, it's evolved in that way. And I've gotten to know the fans very well, in terms of how hard it is to please all of them; uhh, which is great, because I love the passion of that. And that actually is one of the things that kinda keeps you going, 'cause this kind of movie is meant to please people and engage people. And so when the fans engage, I really like it, even when they get mad at us, you know?
  • TFWIKI: We've heard about Transformers One being in development since at least 2014. So, how has the movie changed over the course of that long development, and how did it start out?
DI BONAVENTURA: Well, I would say the general notion of "two best friends that are gonna fall apart" has stayed the same, because that was what initially attracted us to the story. But trying to find the tone for it, and in a way, what is the... I don't mean literally the age, but in a sense, what is the age of Optimus and — or, D-16 and Orion when you meet them? Uhh, they were much younger. It was more of a coming of age, almost 16 or 17-year-old. And then when we read the script we were like, this is way too young. Because at the end of the day, if you want them to become Optimus Prime, they'd better have a little more maturity.
TFWIKI: You want that to happen by the end of the film.
DI BONAVENTURA: Right. You know what I mean? And then if you rush it, everybody's gonna go "bullshit!", you know, like, "come on". So, it eventually evolved into this kind of vague, I'll say... "adult, but not fully mature".
TFWIKI: Yeah, it's a hard thing to pin down with, like, characters who aren't human.
DI BONAVENTURA: Yeah. Yeah, so that's ultimately the thing that... I think one of the biggest surprises for me was... in the live-action films, we spend so much time and effort putting the humanity in the humans, not the robots. And then suddenly there's no humans. So it really gave us the opportunity to get inside these robots in a way that we've never done before, and that was really exciting.
  • TFWIKI: Going on from adding the human element to the robots, ILM is a studio with lots of development in special effects for live action movies, but this is one of their first ventures into a fully animated film. Were there any challenges when forging into a new medium like this?
DI BONAVENTURA: For ILM?
TFWIKI: Yeah.
DI BONAVENTURA: I don't think so, because... you know, when you think about what they do with visual effects, they're telling stories with moving characters. And they did such a good job with Rango, which is the only other time they did it, right? So that gave you confidence that they were gonna do it. What happened, that was the really interesting and wonderful part, was how hardcore the fans are at ILM. So they were fighting over which character could they animate! Literally, you would hear about it, "I wanna"... and the benefit to us was, they put a lot of care and heart into these things, and they really wanted their characters to be the best.
  • TFWIKI: Sounds like there was a lot of care from the animators on this. There's been lots of discussions about crunch in the animation industry in recent years — there's the allegedly troubled development of Across the Spider-Verse, and Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem was noted for its prompt turnaround time that avoided overwork. So, in your role as a producer, how do you approach these issues of perfectionism, crunch time, and good labour practice while ensuring that production progresses smoothly?
DI BONAVENTURA: I probably shouldn't answer this question, because I'm not exactly PC on my answer. I think the nature of filmmaking is, we're really lucky to work in a business that's about passion. Passion doesn't fit really well into a timeline, so inevitably you come to a crunch time. It's just true in the live action, it's true in every movie, and authors always tell me that about when they're writing their books — it's the same thing happens to them! There's something about the creative process that's not — it's unruly. So, I think if you're enjoying it, you need to recognize that. Like, you know, I don't wanna abuse anybody, and y'know — if you get into that period where people have to really work too hard, you gotta help them in that situation, then. 'Cause it's gonna come. It does on every movie. I've never seen it not come, no matter how well you plan, et cetera. 'Cause it's not a science what we're doing at all, and there's all these discoveries that happen near the end, which makes you go "oh, let's do some more, come on!". We discovered that on this movie, where we're calling ILM going "we've got a few ideas, you know, do you have enough man-hours?".
TFWIKI: Sounds like it's about supporting the team.
DI BONAVENTURA: Yeah, it's about supporting. And I think that's where people go wrong. Like, you gotta be conscious of it — in live-action, for instance, there are some studios that are so cheap that when you're on — sort of medium location-distance and you're shooting 'til midnight, they don't pay for a hotel room. It's like, well, no-no-no, you pay for a hotel room. You protect the people. So I think that comes out of people being careless. That's all it is. I don't wanna undersell it, but that's what I think is the problem. My job is to take care of everybody, before me.
TFWIKI: Keeping on the theme of working with teams, how has your dynamic working with Michael Bay changed since his shift from directing the movies to producing them? He's a famously fastidious director when it suits him — is he less hands-on as a producer, or is he invested in the selection process for personnel and direction of the series?
DI BONAVENTURA: Well, Michael's like every director who produces — when they're directing, they're nowhere to be found other than directing, you know what I mean? So what Michael is is a resource for me. For instance, on Rise of the Beasts, when we're doing a live action movie with a director who's never done visual effects, Michael is so valuable to sit down and spend an hour and just explain how he does it. And what to be afraid of, and what not to be afraid of — like, that's not something I can do. So it's less important to me about how much time, it's what he's spending his time on, you know? Steven is the same way; Steven had this really interesting perspective on this movie, on the animated movie, which came up with some new ideas right at the end — or I'll say fixes. You know the scene where she's coming in on the train, all the bad guys are coming, and then up come — right? You couldn't tell who was who really well, and Steven said, like, "hey guys, you know, you can't really tell — I'm kind of confused — it looks beautiful!". So we adjusted that shot so when you first see them coming up, you see Optimus really close, so you know "oh, that's who those guys are!". So that's a great example of, like, having some distance is also important.
  • TFWIKI: Moving on from this film specifically, we've got the G.I. Joe and Transformers crossover movie in [development].<ref>We’ll spare you the digression in which we forgot film production terminology and accidentally said it was “in production”, then “in pre-production”.</ref> It's fair to say that previous G.I. Joe films haven't been as successful as the Transformers films, especially outside of America; internationally, the G.I. Joe brand doesn't really have much of a foothold in pop culture — here in the UK, we're much more familiar with Action Man. What sort of considerations do you make towards international audiences when you're working on these films, and are you hoping that the upcoming crossover film will increase global awareness of G.I. Joe?
DI BONAVENTURA: Sure, yeah. Absolutely, we'd hope that, you know. Actually, I keep wanting to add Action Man, because it's just G.I. Joe in another name — I mean, it's a little more Bond, in a way. But what's interesting, actually, if you look at the grosses, we did about the same internationally as we did domestically. They're almost, like, exactly equal, it's kind of a strange result. Which in a way is underperforming internationally, but it's in a way also more than people realize. Um, you know, there's several things about it; one is, the fans have been clamoring for this for quite a while. So we like to listen to our fans, you know, and there's now our opportunity to do it. Yes, you hope the Transformers can help Joe, but Joe's gotta stand on its own at the same time, so we've gotta come up with the right stories. And I think the trickiness is, if you see it as American jingoism, it's not gonna travel. If you see it as a bunch of men and women fighting a righteous fight, it'll travel. So I think that's the difference — that's how I wanna approach the next one.
  • TFWIKI: We can end with a bit of a softball —
DI BONAVENTURA: [laughs] I appreciate softballs!
TFWIKI: So you mentioned that everyone at ILM, on the production team, are very passionate about Transformers and they all kind of scramble to pick their favourites. Have you got a favourite?
DI BONAVENTURA: Yeah, I have two favorites, probably. Bumblebee is — it's impossible not to love Bumblebee. I have to say, Mirage gave Bumblebee a good run for his money. So I really dig it — but I really like Ironhide, and I'd love to see that character again, 'cause I just — there was something about the basic craziness of that "can I shoot now? Can I shoot now?". You know what I mean? There's just something funny about that, I dunno, I really found that endearing.
TFWIKI: Yeah, I definitely know some people who are still nursing the wound from Dark of the Moon.
DI BONAVENTURA: My son has never forgiven me. I'm not kidding. He's like "Dad, I can't believe you killed my favorite character".

Interview with Josh Cooley

  • TFWIKI: At the TFWiki, we’re really keen to know more about the creative influences that drive the plot of the film. Obviously some of it is drawing from the original ‘80s cartoon, but there’s also clear influence from more modern media, in particular the in-house story bible developed by Hasbro which tells the history of the Transformers. Are there any specific pre-existing stories or source material you can name as having a big impact on the film?
COOLEY: I grew up in the 80's, I was an 80's kid, I watched it every Saturday morning with a bowl of Captain Crunch in my lap; and I had all the toys — uh, not all the toys, but I had a good amount of them. And then I wanted to become an animator, and that was a huge influence on me as well. So I could not help but be influenced by that; we went back to the G1 designs for inspiration, to kind of see if we could modernize them, bring them up a little bit. And, um, now that they're in CG, just let in more detail and kind of more mechanics behind it. But you know what was interesting, my crew of hundreds of animators and artists — they are such huge fans as well, but they're all different ages, and some of them are more the 90's kids, you know. And so there were references that were brought up in some of the designs that I wasn't even familiar with. And I was like "oh, this is really cool!" and then they'd show me what it was from, and I was like "oh, that's awesome, let's do that!".
  • TFWIKI: That dovetails nicely into a question here — outside of big mainstays like Optimus and Megatron, the trailer that we've seen featured some very unexpected characters like Airachnid, which was a surprise. How was it decided which characters would appear in the film, and were there any characters that you, Paramount, or Hasbro particularly pushed to include?
COOLEY: As you know, there's a million characters from all the different versions. Nobody really pushed us to include anyone besides Optimus and Megatron — and Bumblebee and Elita, which I thought was a great idea — but the big thing was, "are the characters supporting the most important part of this movie"? Which is Orion Pax and D-16's relationship. And that's the arc of the story, and so whenever I was presented with some really great stuff, I'd think "how is this supporting that story"? 'Cause I don't wanna get sidetracked or start getting lost in the lore or the fanservice of it all. I wanna make sure this is a great story that everybody can watch even if you've never seen Transformers, and still follow it.
  • TFWIKI: Did your team do any direct collaboration with Hasbro toy designers while developing the new looks for the characters?
COOLEY: No. Uhh, well, let's see — let me back up on that. They were extremely helpful with giving us anything we asked for in terms of what's been done in the past, and any kind of multiple versions of things. It was really great to be able to pick up the phone at any time and have Hasbro answer any question at all. But we had our own artists and our own designers that have worked on all sort of films, from Lucasfilm, Star Wars and everything, to Blue Eye Samurai, even. They were fans of the film and they would do their own take on it.
  • TFWIKI: We actually first heard of this film being pitched to Paramount as early as 2015, so it’s been in [development]<ref>Did it again.</ref> for over nine years. Were there any significant shifts in the direction of the film and its story over that time?
COOLEY: Absolutely. So, they started talking about it in — what did you say, 2015? I came on board in 2020, and when I came on board there was the first draft of the script. So I don't think they'd been working on it that entire time, but they'd been thinking about it, for sure. And the script that I read was a little more comical? But it was clear that that wasn't the right tone for this film specifically, because we know there's gonna be a war, civil war on Cybertron, you can't have everybody making jokes and then all of a sudden there's a war. So, um, the stakes were really important for this film. And because our characters at the beginning are a little naive, and just on the younger side, not as experienced, it allowed more freedom for them to be a little looser and have fun really getting to know these characters. But once they realize something's going on and things are getting real, it needs to get real.
  • TFWIKI: Were any unique challenges or quirks to working on a Transformers movie compared to other animated productions? You've obviously done Toy Story…
COOLEY: Yeah. One of the things I always like to think about is, "what can be so specific to just this movie?", and even "what can we do here that we can't do in other Transformers films?". And so, one of the things I always think about is "okay, our characters are robots, but more specifically they're Transformers". Like, most importantly. So one of the things I was really excited to play with, and the animators really brought it, was a fight scene. I don't want it to feel like two people punching each other, it needs to be two Transformers going at it. And so, every single fight scene, they're using transformation either as a way to evade attack or as a way to attack. And that just makes the fight scenes so specific to just this film.
  • TFWIKI: You did give a few examples of other things, but outside of the Transformers brand itself, what would you say are your primary creative influences on the project?
COOLEY: Well, I love sci-fi films; obviously Star Wars, I grew up with that, but I love the new Dune movies, just in terms of the scope and the scale of it. Before I even saw the first one I knew that was something I wanted to bring to this, because — with the live action, you always have the humans as a temperature gauge, as a barometer of how big things are compared to our world, because you're always on Earth. But we've never done it only on Cybertron, so — scale is so important to Transformers, as you know. So I wanted to make sure we still had this, and so the camera is at Orion Pax's eye level for most of it. And then the world gets big, so I wanted to make Cybertron just massive. And that was really fun to do.
  • TFWIKI: What made you come to the conclusion that Hemsworth and Henry were going to be the voices for this Optimus and Megatron? Was there anything in their audition, or first impression, that made you go "Yes! That's who I want!"?
COOLEY: This question kinda haunted me from the moment I signed onto this picture, because I grew up with Peter Cullen as the voice of my Optimus, and — he is Optimus. He's the voice of Transformers. And so the second that I signed on I went "wait a second, he's younger, how is this going to work?". So the goal was "how can we find a voice that you would believe would lead to that, that importance of Peter Cullen's voice?". And, you know, thinking about Chris Hemsworth, at first I was thinking "I don't think I've heard him in anything before". He hadn't done any voice work except for, I think, the What If show as Thor. So I got a chance to talk to him, and we're talking about the role, and he said he'd do his American accent — it's like, great, that's getting there — and then the first recording session we had, we started off talking about the character and how he'd be a little more inexperienced and kind of loose at the beginning, and all that charm that's in there now is all Chris. He's just so much fun to work with. But as we got towards the end of the script as we were going through it, he started to kind of like sit up a little straighter and really embody it; and he didn't do an imitation, but he was capturing the essence of it, and really had the tone and the cadence of the speech. And he started saying these lines, and I went -- I got goosebumps. "What are you doing right now?", and he said "oh I thought I'd try something and see if," you know, I'm like "that's fantastic". You can hear at the end of the movie, he's really — he sounds just, like, powerful. And so we went back and forth and tried to find that balance in there, and he was phenomenal. And then Brian Tyree Henry, I knew that we needed to have a Megatron who — a D-16 who would eventually become Megatron, but in order to really feel like they were friends at the beginning, like brothers, he needed to be really likable and just, super appealing, super charming. Brian Tyree is that; he's a phenomenal actor, I knew he'd be able to make that turn to the Megatron we know, and we talked a lot about that, how to approach that. And I'm just thrilled with their performances.
  • TFWIKI: We've actually covered all the questions we've got on the list here, so I think we've got room for one more. Obviously, Transformers One has a lot of different characters in it, and as you mentioned a lot of people are very passionate about their favourites and stuff. Have you got a particular favourite Transformer?
COOLEY: [sighs] You're not gonna like this answer. It's Optimus Prime. I don't know how you top that! He's so great, he's such a great character. And I love the designs of all the other characters as well, and Starscream's a fantastic character as well — I was thrilled that we got him into this film, in a really great way. But... it's Optimus Prime.
TFWIKI: It's a good answer!

References

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