The Transformers franchise is preparing to roll out a whole new collection of content coming out in the next few years, with one of these projects being the first animated film for the franchise since The Transformers: The Movie, which was released in 1986. The starring voice cast for Transformers One was announced today during Paramount's panel at CinemaCon 2023 in Las Vegas. The film will be headlined by Marvel Cinematic Universe star Chris Hemsworth who will voice a young Optimus Prime while the younger version of his greatest adversary, Megatron, will be voiced by Bryan Tyree Henry. The film is set to release in theaters on July 19, 2024.
Hemsworth is widely known for his role as the God of Thunder, Thor in the MCU, with his most recently released project seeing him return to the role in Thor: Love and Thunder. This will be the first animated film that Hemsworth has voiced in, with the only other animated project that he has previously been a part of being Marvel's What If...? series where he reprised his role as Thor yet again. His next project set to release is the high-octane action movie Extraction 2 on Netflix in June 2023. Henry won the hearts of movie-goers for his portrayal of Lemon in 2022's action film Bullet Train as well as his main role as Alfred "Paper Boi" Miles in the acclaimed series, Atlanta. Outside of these live-action roles, he has had voice acting experience in the past as he voiced the father of Miles Morales, Jefferson Davis, in the 2018 Oscar winner Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, a role he is set to reprise in the highly anticipated sequel Spider-Man Across The Spider-Verse releasing later this year, also in June.
The other starring cast members that were announced for the new film include Hemsworth's MCU co-star Scarlett Johansson as Elita, Keegan Michael Key, who has an extensive voice acting catalog and is coming off of his role as Toad in the animated blockbuster The Super Mario Movie, as Bumblebee. Legendary actors Jon Hamm and Lawrence Fishburne are also set to star in the new film, playing the leader of the Autobots before Optimus Prime, Sentinel Prime, and Alpha Trion, one of the oldest and wisest Transformers in the franchises, respectively.
The Story Of The New Animated Transformers Film
It has been previously announced that the film will be a prequel, taking viewers to a story taking place on Cybertron, the home planet of the Transformers. The story of the new film, being directed by Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley, will focus on younger versions of the franchise's characters as they grow and become the characters that fans know them as today. Collider's own Steve Weintraub recently had the chance to interview one of the film's producers, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who gave some insight into the film's story and told us that the film will explore the "origin story of all Transformers" as well as the prior relationship between Optimus Prime and Megatron the eventually led them to be legendary adversaries. He said in the same interview that the story of the two's relationship is a "natural trilogy."
Transformers One film is set to release in theaters on July 19, 2024. In the meantime, you can watch the trailer for Rise of the Beasts below.