Later this month, Bumblebee will headline the first Transformers spinoff movie, which will give him an origin story. In the Michael Bay helmed live-action films, Bumblebee communicated through his radio until Transformers: The Last Knight. However, Teen Wolf and Maze Runner star Dylan O’Brien will be voicing the Autobot soldier in the film.
Comicbook.com shared that producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura’s vision of the origin story will have longer lasting implications. According to Bonaventura, the film will be resetting the character’s mythology. To do so, they wanted someone who could embody the character’s exuberance. O’Brien fit the role.
“Since we were approaching this as an origin story, we felt that it was appropriate that you got to hear his voice,” said di Bonaventura. “That’s the simple logic that we employed. The longer term implication of that is different. But the short-term implication of that is, since we really are resetting the mythology, essentially, of who Bumblebee is. And so, that seemed to us to be the appropriate, to get the chance to hear what he sounds like.”
Related: Bumblebee Featurette Reveals Sneak Peak at First Generation Designs
Bonaventura also offered his praise for O’Brien. “Dylan has that great quality in his voice of youthful exuberance, and also sort of trustworthiness. I think those are the two qualities that we wanted Bumblebee to have.”
Bumblebee takes place 20 years before Bumblebee connected with Shia LeBeouf’s Sam Witwicky in Transformers. Hailee Steinfield stars in the film as Charlie Watson, a teenage girl who discovers that her yellow car is actually alive. The film is a first in a planned expansion of the Transformers universe by Hasbro. Bumblebee will speed into theaters on December 21.
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