Transformers One

Transformers One is a 2024 American animated science fiction action film based on Hasbro's Transformers toy line. It was directed by Josh Cooley from a screenplay by Eric Pearson and the writing duo of Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari, based on a story by Barrer and Ferrari. The ensemble voice cast includes Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne, and Jon Hamm. It is set on Cybertron, the home planet of the Transformers and depicts the origins and early relationship of Optimus Prime and Megatron.

Transformers One
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Josh Cooley
Screenplay by	Eric Pearson Andrew Barrer Gabriel Ferrari
Story by	Andrew Barrer Gabriel Ferrari
Based on	Hasbro's Transformers action figures
Produced by	Don Murphy Tom DeSanto Lorenzo di Bonaventura Michael Bay Mark Vahradian Aaron Dem
Starring	Chris Hemsworth Brian Tyree Henry Scarlett Johansson Keegan-Michael Key Steve Buscemi Laurence Fishburne Jon Hamm
Cinematography	Christopher Batty
Edited by	Lynn Hobson
Music by	Brian Tyler
Production companies	Paramount Animation[a] Hasbro Entertainment New Republic Pictures Di Bonaventura Pictures Bayhem Films
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release dates	September 11, 2024 (Sydney) September 20, 2024 (United States)
Running time	104 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$75 million[2][3][4]
Box office	$43 million[5][6]

In March 2015, following the release of Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), Paramount Pictures tasked Akiva Goldsman to set up a writers' room to create ideas for potential future Transformers films. By May 2015, Barrer and Ferrari had signed on as writers, and they came up with the idea of an animated prequel set on Cybertron. The film was announced in August 2017, and by April 2020, Cooley had been hired to direct. Animation services were provided by Industrial Light & Magic, and the design was primarily influenced by Generation 1 and Art Deco. The score was composed by Brian Tyler.

Transformers One premiered in Sydney, Australia on September 11, 2024, and was released by Paramount Pictures in the United States on September 20. The film has grossed $43 million worldwide and received positive reviews from critics, who praised the story, animation, and voice performances.

Long ago, Primus created the first thirteen Primes, an elite group of warriors, and became the planet Cybertron. The Primes perished in a war with an alien species known as the Quintessons, resulting in the mystical artifact known as the Matrix of Leadership being lost. Without the Matrix, Cybertron's Energon has dried up, forcing Cybertronians to mine for deposits deep beneath the surface to survive. Meanwhile, Sentinel Prime, the head of Cybertron and leader of Iacon, continues to fight the Quintessons and search for the Matrix to no avail.

In Iacon, 50 cycles later, Energon miner Orion Pax sneaks into an archive room to find clues to the current whereabouts of the Matrix. After being caught by security, Orion's best friend and miner, D-16, saves him from capture. During a cave-in, fellow miner, Jazz, gets trapped under a rock. While they manage to rescue him, their superior, Elita-1, is blamed for the incident and demoted to waste management.

Sentinel Prime returns to Iacon, relaying that his current expedition has been fruitless, but instructs the bots to hold off on all mining work for the Iacon 5000 race. Wanting to prove themselves as more than miners, Orion and D-16 secretly enter the race but lose despite their efforts. However, Sentinel takes an interest and, instead of punishing them, has a security guard give them a new post at his residence. Unfortunately, the guard, Darkwing, dislikes Orion and D-16 and sends them to the smelting area, where they meet B-127. The three of them then discover a chip in the junk with a distress message from Alpha Trion, one of the Primes, revealing coordinates to his location on the planet's surface.

The three hitchhike on a train carrying crates to the surface, inadvertently bringing Elita along. They eventually discover a deactivated Trion and the deceased Primes inside a cavern. After reactivating him, Trion reveals that Sentinel betrayed the Primes, allied with the Quintessons for power in return for Energon, and secretly removed the miners' transformation cogs to keep them powerless. Trion gives Orion's team the fallen Primes' cogs, allowing them to transform, as well as a chip carrying evidence of Sentinel's treason. However, Sentinel's soldiers arrive, so Trion holds them off to allow the others to escape, resulting in him being captured and executed by Sentinel.

Orion grows concerned as D-16 becomes increasingly vengeful toward Sentinel and violent with his new abilities. On the way back to Iacon, they are captured by Cybertron's former High Guard who are rebelling against Sentinel. D-16 defeats their leader, Starscream, and takes command of the High Guard, but Sentinel's forces find them. In the ensuing battle, the evidence chip is destroyed, Orion and Elita are buried under debris, and D-16, Starscream, B-127, and half of the High Guard are captured.

Orion, encouraged by Elita, rallies the uncaptured High Guard members. Meanwhile, D-16 is tortured by Sentinel, learning that he took his idol, Megatronus Prime's, cog before being branded with his symbol. Orion comes to D-16's rescue and leads a rebellion with the help of the miners, exposing Sentinel's crimes using memory recordings from his first lieutenant, Airachnid, as proof. However, D-16 still desires to execute Sentinel in revenge, but Orion, refusing to let D-16 go through with it, gets shot trying to stop him. While initially horrified at his actions, D-16 ultimately lets Orion fall into Cybertron's core before killing Sentinel and taking Megatronus' cog. D-16 then rechristens himself as "Megatron" and rallies the High Guard to sack Iacon.

The dying Orion is bestowed the Matrix of Leadership by Primus and the Primes and rechristened as "Optimus Prime." Optimus returns to stop Iacon's destruction, defeating Megatron in a fierce duel. Enraged that Optimus was given the Matrix, Megatron vows revenge after he and the High Guard are exiled for their actions. Afterward, the Matrix restores the transformation cogs to the Cybertronians, Energon flows again, and Optimus christens his followers as Autobots before sending a message to the Quintessons to stay away. Meanwhile, Megatron renames the High Guard as the Decepticons and declares war on Optimus' administration.

Following the release of Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014), Paramount Pictures tasked Akiva Goldsman in March 2015 to work with the film franchise's director Michael Bay, executive producer Steven Spielberg, and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura to set up a writers' room to create ideas for future Transformers films.^[7] According to Goldsman, the writing team would look at various Transformers media created by Hasbro for inspiration; if they found one that interested them, they could submit a treatment, which would then be further developed by the whole team.^[8] In late May, the team of Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari signed on as writers. According to Deadline Hollywood, one of the ideas from the writer's room had the working title Transformers One^[9] and would serve as an animated prequel focusing on the Autobot–Decepticon conflict that began on Cybertron.^[10][11]

In August 2017, it was reported that an animated Transformers film was officially in the works.^[12] Following the release of Bumblebee (2018), di Bonaventura discussed the animated film, clarifying that it was "in the works" and would "tell the whole Cybertron mythology".^[13] Bumblebee director Travis Knight additionally expressed interest in the film.^[14][15]

In April 2020, it was reported that former Pixar animator and filmmaker Josh Cooley had been hired to direct the film and was overseeing the script by Barrer and Ferrari. Hasbro Entertainment and Paramount Animation would produce the film.^[16] In February 2022, it emerged that the film would be computer-animated.^[17] In December 2022, the title was reported to be Transformers: A New Generation, though di Bonaventura later stated in April 2023 that the title had yet to be finalized.^[18][19] Later that month, at CinemaCon, the title was officially confirmed as Transformers One.^[20] di Bonaventura stated that the plot will center around the origins of the Transformers, and explore the events that lead Optimus and Megatron to go from being brothers-in-arms to becoming enemies.^[21] The budget was reportedly $75 million,^[2][3] although one source put the cost of production as high as $147 million.^[4]

Eric Pearson, Barrer, and Ferrari received screenplay credit, with the latter two also having "story by" billing.^[22][23] When Cooley first joined the project, Hasbro gave him a bible that covered the lore for the entire franchise.^[24] According to di Bonaventura, the film's events are set 3 billion years before the live-action films.^[25] Cooley wanted to capture an "epic quality" and grand scale for the film and used The Transformers: The Movie (1986) and Dune (1965) as points of reference.^[26] As there are no human characters in Transformers One as they are in previous films in the franchise, Cooley and the team aimed to "inject more comedy and humanity" into the Transformers themselves. They wanted to make sure that the characters had enough humor and emotion to carry the story on their own.^[26] The film depicts how the Transformers gained the ability to transform, an idea Cooley found appealing. He felt that there was fun in seeing the characters learn and adapt to their new powers.^[26]

The relationship between Optimus Prime and Megatron and the tragedy of their falling out is the emotional core of the film. For Cooley, it was important to show that Megatron was not just a villain. He wanted people who had no knowledge of Transformers to come into the film and not be able to immediately pick up who was going to be good or bad.^[24] He took inspiration from several famous brothers-turned-enemies stories from across pop culture when crafting the arc.^[27] An original idea for the film was to depict Megatron as a gladiator and have him and Optimus Prime come from different backgrounds. Due to runtime constraints, that idea was scrapped in favor of having the two be bunkmates working as miners instead.^[28]

The voice cast of the film was announced at CinemaCon in April 2023, consisting of Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry as younger versions of Optimus Prime and Megatron, respectively, alongside Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Jon Hamm, and Laurence Fishburne headlining.^[20] In April 2024, Steve Buscemi, who had previously voiced Daytrader in Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), was cast as Starscream.^[29][30][31] Cooley desired to get a voice cast as impressive as that of The Transformers: The Movie.^[27]

Transformers One marks Hemsworth's first animated feature film. The actor joined the project after being impressed with the screenplay.^[32] Hemsworth made efforts to not use his regular speaking voice for Optimus Prime.^[32] Many of Hemsworth's lines in the film were "riff offs" from what the filmmakers wrote, bringing his charisma and comedy to them. From a fan's point of view, di Bonaventura felt important to respect longtime Optimus Prime actor Peter Cullen's performance while not bringing him back to ensure the audience felt Prime's youth, leading to Hemsworth's casting, who surprised di Bonaventura with his "very strong sense of story".^[33]

Cooley's desire to harken back to the chattier version of Bumblebee seen in other Transformers media influenced Key's casting, who he had worked with before when directing Pixar's Toy Story 4 (2019).^[26] Cooley requested that Key stay close to his regular speaking voice for Bumblebee.^[34] Johansson was approached to voice Elita by Hemsworth, who texted her upon joining the project himself. The two had previously worked together in several Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films.^[35]

Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), who had provided the visual effects for the first six live-action Transformers installments, returned to provide the animation for the film.^[36] Rob Coleman served as animation supervisor, and Frazier Churchill served as VFX supervisor.^[22][37] Cooley directed the studio to create a visual style for the film that was realistic enough to be believable while still looking like it was crafted by human hands.^[24]

The designs of the Transformers were heavily influenced by those of Generation 1.^[38] Cooley said, "They’re really clear and have these great silhouettes. It was important to hit that."^[24] The team began by looking at the work of original Transformers character designer, Floro Dery.^[38] Art Deco was a big influence on the film's production and character design, with Cooley describing the style as being all about post-depression. He felt it to be relevant to the film as it takes place before the planet of Cybertron falls apart and while things are still going well.^[38] In order to make the Transformers feel more human and for the audiences to better connect, the team at ILM was instructed to make them more emotive with their faces and character animation.^[39] Measures applied to ensure this included making sure their faces were not covered all of the time and making their eyes more expressive.^[26] Cooley felt a grand sense of scale was essential to the Transformers brand. As there are no humans in the film to use as a scale reference, the team looked to Cybertron instead and aimed to make it feel larger than life.^[40]

In May 2024, it was announced that Brian Tyler, who had previously provided the score for the animated television series Transformers: Prime (2010–2013), would compose the score for Transformers One.^[41] The soundtrack album features the score and was released by Sony Classical Records and Milan Records on September 20, 2024.^[42] An original song for the film, "If I Fall", written by Tyler and performed by Quavo and Ty Dolla Sign, was released as a single on September 6, 2024.^[43] A second original song, "Together As One", by DJ and producer Excision, was released on September 12, 2024.^[44]

Transformers One screened as a work-in-progress at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 10, 2024; audience and social media reactions were reportedly positive.^[45][46] The film premiered in Sydney, Australia on September 11, 2024, and was theatrically released in the United States on September 20, 2024.^[47][48] It will be screened in various formats, including RealD 3D, IMAX, Dolby Cinema, and 4DX.^[49][50] It was originally scheduled to be released on July 19, 2024,^[51] but was initially delayed to September 13,^[52] before shifting a week later to avoid competition with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.^[48][53]

The first trailer for Transformers One was released online on April 18, 2024 to positive response.^[54] It featured a custom introduction from Hemsworth and Henry, and incorporated the song "Start Me Up" by the Rolling Stones.^[54][55] It made its debut via a spacecraft that was launched 125,000 feet above the Earth.^[54] Brian Welk of IndieWire felt that the film looked to have appeal for both younger audiences and longtime Transformers fans.^[56] Alex Billington of FirstShowing.net found the trailer amusing and felt that the film had promise, though he opined that it seemed to be more geared towards younger audiences than compared to previous Transformers films.^[57] Eric Diaz of Nerdist commented that the incorporation of "Start Me Up" gave the film "a very 2000s DreamWorks Animation vibe."^[55] A second trailer debuted at San Diego Comic-Con on July 25, 2024.^[40] Nick Bythrow of Screen Rant noted that the trailer gave a taste of the tragic aspect of the film's story, as well as a closer look at the character Starscream.^[58] Michael McWhertor of Polygon highlighted the comedy, performances, and chemistry of the voice cast as standout aspects of the trailer.^[59]

As of September 25, 2024, Transformers One has grossed $29 million in the United States and Canada, and $14 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $43 million.^[5][6]

In the United States and Canada, Transformers One was released alongside The Substance and Never Let Go, and was projected to gross $30–40 million from 3,978 theaters in its opening weekend.^[2][3] The film made $9.6 million on its first day, including $3.4 million from Wednesday and Thursday night previews.^[60] It went on to debut to $24.6 million, finishing second behind holdover Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.^[61] The opening weekend gross was deemed disappointing, but there was optimism that the film would do well over time.^[62]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 89% of 134 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.3/10. The website's consensus reads: "Dramatically satisfying with a dash of good humor, Transformers One suggests that animation might be the optimal medium for this oft-adapted franchise."^[63] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 63 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.^[64] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while those surveyed by PostTrak gave it an average five out of five stars, with 75% saying they would definitely recommend it.^[61]

Todd Gilchrist of Variety praised the film's direction, animation, and screenplay. He felt the film boasted a level of complexity and described the it as "the most sophisticated onscreen portrait" of the Transformers to date.^[65] G. Allen Johnson of the San Francisco Chronicle compared the film favorably to the live-action installments, applauding its screenplay, visuals, and resonant themes, and describing it as unapologetically made for "the inner child."^[66] Carlos Aguilar of the Los Angeles Times opined that the film benefitted from the quality standard set by prior Transformers films, but still commended it for its screenplay, themes, humor, animation, and emotional core.^[67] Adam Graham of The Detroit News awarded the film a B- rating, praising the animation, direction, screenplay, and humor, and comparing it favorably to the live-action installments.^[68]

Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film for its direction, animation, screenplay, and emotional core and felt it to have revitalized the Transformers franchise.^[69] Leigh Monson of The A.V. Club awarded the film a B- rating. They commended the story, animation, and voice performances, though felt the film to be predictable and unambitious.^[70] Randy Myers of The Mercury News gave the film a 3 out of 4 rating and referred to it as the best of the Paramount Transformers films. They lauded the humor, voice performances, and animation.^[71]

Tom Jorgensen of IGN rated the film 5 out of 10, praising the voice cast and Brian Tyree Henry's performance, as well as the story of Orion Pax and D-16. Overall he felt the film was underwhelming and was critical of it for being surface-level and featuring illegible action scenes.^[72] Soren Andersen of The Seattle Times gave the film a 2 out of 4 star rating. He commended Keegan-Michael Key's performance but felt the film to be overall an exhausting experience due to an overabundance of action scenes.^[73] Wilson Chapman of IndieWire gave the film a C grade and said: "It’s all executed competently but joylessly, with zero fun to be had as it labors across an hour and 40 minute runtime that feels both too short and painfully long."^[74]

In April 2023, Lorenzo di Bonaventura stated that there is discussion for Transformers One to become a trilogy of films.^[21] By June, he confirmed that the story is mapped out to progress over three movies, detailing the progression of the characters into their depiction in the live-action film series. The producer explained that Chris Hemsworth's depiction of Optimus Prime will grow into the leader depicted in the previous installments, stating that the transition from Hemsworth's voice to Peter Cullen's will make sense within the story.^[75] In September 2024, di Bonaventura confirmed that they will make a Transformers One sequel if the film turns out a success, with the filmmakers already devising ideas for a character-driven sequel like its predecessor.^[76]

• Official website
• Transformers One at IMDb