It may be another sad day with announcements of more movies being pushed back due to the pandemic, this time all coming from Paramount Pictures, but there has been one bright spot to all the depressing news today. Even though we are going to have to wait longer for films like the Mission: Impossible sequels or the Quiet Place spinoff, Paramount has announced that there is a new untitled animated Transformers' movie on the way with a release date of July 19, 2024. It's unclear if this is the previously announced Josh Cooley-directed prequel.
Today's release date reveal did not come with information about the director, story details, voice talent, or creative team attached to the project. However, this will be the first animated movie in the franchise since The Transformers: The Movie all the way back in 1986. Transformers have always been a hot property for Paramount with Michael Bay’s original live-action film in 2007 giving pop culture a renewed interest in this 80s franchise based around transforming robots in disguise.
Say what you will about those films from a quality standpoint, the franchise has grossed almost $5 billion as a whole With Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Transformers: Age of Extinction each making over a billion respectively. The last film in the franchise 2018’s Bumblebee was not as big a financial success as its previous entries in the series, but it was the first critical hit for the franchise. The series’ next live-action film Transformers: Rise of the Beasts directed by Creed 2’s Steven Caple Jr. looks to continue that upward path for the franchise next year.
It will be interesting to see what kind of connections, if any, this upcoming animated film will have to Rise of the Beasts, Bumblebee, or the Bay series. The beautifully animated CGI sequences set on the Transformers’ home planet of Cybertron that highlighted the fabled war between the Autobots and Decepticons was one of the best moments of Bumblebee so the sky's the limit to what kind of story this animated tale can tell. As long as they can get Peter Cullen back as Optimus Prime they are off to a good start and if Bumblebee taught us anything it is that this franchise can tell an effectively heartfelt story that focuses on both the human characters and their robot counterparts.
Will this film have the touch, or will it be another entry fans of this long-running franchise will want to forget? Only time will tell, but we will hopefully find out on July 19, 2024, pending any more delays given the current dire state of the world. For all the latest news on this animated project and all things Transformers, stick with Collider.