Published Date: 19/06/2023

Unleashing the Transformers: Rise of the Beasts: Exclusive Interview with the Director and Producer

Unite or Fall

Yes, we have been so excited for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and so we were super excited to sit down with the director of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, Steven Caple Jr. and producer, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, to chat about the exhilarating new addition to the franchise, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.

Film director, Steven Caple Jr, last graced our Showcase Cinemas screen with his film Creed II (2018), the sequel to Creed (2015) and Lorenzo di Bonaventura is the longstanding producer of the franchise, right back to Transformers in 2007.

Steven Caple Jr.

         Congratulations, Steven. There is so much love for the Transformers films here at Showcase Cinemas, so congratulations on a film we know our audience is going to love. Can you recall being offered the film? How did it come about?

Yes, yes I can. The first time I was offered the film it was to be called BumbleBee 2 and this was right after BumbleBee. They were not really sure of the direction they were going to go in at that time. They did not mention Beast Wars at all. A couple of years later they came back to me, around 2020 and said that they were going to do Beast Wars  and I was like ‘Wait! What? Like Maximals?!’ So that opportunity to introduce Maximals and design Maximals and to give them life was like huge to me. I grew up watching them, both the Autobots and the Maximals, I’m like this kinda weird age group that could like experience both, to be a kid during both eras, which was nice. So yeah, I was super excited to be a part of this franchise, leave a stamp on the legacy, but at the same time bring the Maximals to life on the big screen in live action was pretty huge.  

         So cool that you are a fan of the Beast wars; what specifically about it attracted you and why did you think that it would entertain audiences?

They have great mythology, you know what I mean, and I wanted to unpack and unravel that. I’m trying to do it little by little, so that it doesn’t get too heavy for a lot of the audiences who have not happened to watch Beast Wars, so this is a toned down simple version. I feel that the characters are really strong. I mean Optimus Prime and the fact that he lived up to his name; it was great putting little small nuggets of information into the film, which was really exciting. And then you had the Cheetor’s and Airazor’s, these were personalities that we haven’t had the chance to see on the big screen, so it was great to see them flourish. Trying to figure out how they would mesh with the Autobots was pretty cool. We were like, alright if we want the Autobots and the Maximals, are they going to be friends or foes at the top?’ How do we make sure that they are not just one big family and that we have an entertaining story? So all these things excited me about bringing these guys to our world, the Transformers world          

         You have experience of joining a franchise after directing Creed II; what do you think you personally bought to the table?

Personally I thought what I bought to Transformers, and to Creed as well, was new characters and new journeys for some of our legendary characters as well. Heart, emotion and some brutal fighting scenes! 

        Finally for our Showcase Cinemas audiences what can they expect from Transformers: Rise of the Beasts?

A little bit of everything, man. I think audiences want to go into cinemas wanting of course to be entertained and have a theatrical experience. So you are going to have these jump scares where you are horrified at moments. You are going to have moments where you may cry. You are going to laugh. Hopefully you are going to be on the edge of your seat, during the action sequences. But most importantly I think you are going to connect with our characters; I am really excited by that aspect because we put a lot of character work and development into characters like Optimus Prime, Primal and of course, Elena and Noah played by Dominique Fishback and Anthony Ramos.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura

         You have achieved so much in your career as a producer of great films that our Showcase Cinema fans love, so thank you for that; what is about the Transformers story that makes you keep coming back to it?

Thank you. I think that we keep on coming back to it because the inventor came up with this great idea: that your car is actually a living, breathing, sentient being – I guess they breathe, I dunno! – but I think that is the core of it, the fascination that something you own actually as a unique personality of its own, and you are in on something that no one else is.

         When you set out creating a new Transformers story what for you are the requirements from your screenwriters?

In each movie it is slightly different, but in general you want them to look at the Transformers world and take it as seriously as they can, because some people can’t. So it is really in a way: do they see the essential core of why it works? And then I ask: what story do they want to tell, what are they passionate about?     

         Fans have been waiting for the Beasts war storyline for a while, why was now the right time to bring it?

We have been talking for a while about this, but it is actually kinda complicated, because there are two things: One is that automobiles and animals is not a natural fit, and the other is that they can’t hang out in a city, so we had to find a story that took us to the jungle. That took us a while to find the right story and the right reason to do it. I dunno, we’ve spoken I think about this for ten plus years. Finally we figured out how to do it.

Why was Steven Caple Jr a good fit to direct Transformers: Rise of the Beasts?

If you look at his work in television and films he draws really great characters and what we wanted to do is bring the emotional intimacy of BumbleBee and bring it into this large scale. So it was really important that our director was really going to build the characters out, in a way that the story demanded. The happy coincidence was that Steven grew up with the Beasts War and I knew he completely gets the DNA.

       Finally for our Showcase Cinemas audiences what can they expect from Transformers: Rise of the Beasts?

I think they are going to have a lot of fun. There is a lot of emotion. There is humour. And of course we bring a lot of action to the table!