During an interview about his latest movie Pacific Rim: Uprising, script writer Steven DeKnight stated that the story for Bumblebee: The Movie is quite fantastic.
Mr. DeKnight was a part of the Transformers Cinematic Universe Writers’ Room which delivered 14 story ideas to Michael Bay and Paramount Pictures.
Uproxx: You were part of the Transformers writers’ room. I’m so curious: What’s a Transformers writing room like?
Steven DeKnight: It was a blast.
Uproxx: I imagine.
Steven DeKnight: It was a room full of incredibly talented, interesting, really wonderful people. I’ve got to say, my time spent in there was just, more than anything, was just so much fun. Everyone was so much fun and interesting. And we actually wrote, I think it was, I want to say 12 different movies. Every one of us took a different idea and developed it into like a full 30-page outline, so there were like 12 movies. And also, in complete honesty, my absolute favorite movie of the bunch was the Bumblebee movie that they’re making right now.
Uproxx: I’ve heard good things about it.
Steven DeKnight: The idea was fantastic.
Mudslide
Gonna have to get my sodium levels checked. So much salt.
Dinobot Snarl
The Truth Train is pulling in to the station I see.
pie125
Steven DeKnight on Twitter
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Afterburner
It wasn't the last failure, we have another one to endure. Make sure it's the last one folks. Stay far away.
By the way, Stevie's new movie isn't getting very good reviews and in fact there are numerous mentions of how it is like a TF film and thus bad. Pretty shitty to have that be what our brand is known for. Stupid, vapid, ignorant crap. Outside of any bubble of delusion, the consensus is TF is garbage.
If we want to show them it isn't, we need a fresh start to even have a chance. This movie will not be it.
deathzero23
It's still about Story Telling.
Putting credible Actors are just for "additional creds" to the film.
Was Hopkins able to save TLK as a whole? NOPE.
I felt inclusion of Hopkins is just a waste of time and money.
They put the kid character with no background story.
Instantly there was a Knight in wreckage holding the crawling talisman again, with no backstory how that fella got in there.
Then there was a Baby Dinos as if Grimlock reproduce himself asexually.
Did the Suicide Squad thingy and all of them died instantly.
Then Bumblebee did the "Martha".
And Cybertron was coming to Earth and there was no planetary disturbance like Tidal Waves and Earth Quakes affecting earth.
Then there's a scattered Horns of Unicron with moving land mass like it's a tectonic plates.
And Quintessa managed to form a human body of her own.
So much for Hopkins and Writers Room..
Transformers: The Last Failure
John TheDestroyer
She's 21. Not a teenager and not in high school.
Theatrical release
optimusprime42
Is it going straight to DVD or theaters
Incepticon
I know it's unintentional, but this is by far the single funniest post I've seen on these boards in months. The contradiction of your assertions about this director and his alleged pick o' the litter in THIS thread about THIS movie is beyond hilarious. Well done, sir. Thread won.
ProtectronPrime
Maybe. I mean, Hollywood doublespeak can be fun to speculate over. "I was happy to work on this project" invites different conjecture than "Everyone was great!" and ending there, or "I'm happy with the final script I saw".
I'm sure a large part of it is industry knowledge, but a substantial amount of it is knowing what the writer is like, so unless anyone actually has any general information on how Steven DeKnight thinks, it's almost all guesswork as to what "The idea was fantastic" actually means. Speculating what it means is a fun way to pass a rainy afternoon. It's not substantive news, but it's food for thought, especially given the different people running the show on Bumblebee instead of Moar Bay.
Xaxis
Travis DeKinght is nothing but a typo.
Travis Knight, on the other hand, might be those things you describe.
Regardless, I still don’t think that writer Steven DeKnight saying anything is “fantastic” is worthwhile “news”.
Starscream Gaga
While you're right in defending teenage actors and actresses, Britney's "downfall" was years and years ago and had less to do with not going to Highschool and much more to do with the paparazzi obsessively hounding her during literally every minute of her life until she understandably couldn't take it anymore and she's seemingly recovered since. Miley Cyrus actually hasn't done anything wrong beyond (successfully) changing her image after she became an adult and didn't want to be known as just Hannah Montanna… so no crashing or burning there.
Scourgatron
Steven DeKnight says, "Bumblebee is terrible! Don't go watch it!".
Yeah
PANTSMAN1973
It's like those movie poster film critic quotes you see all the time. Critic would say something like "It is extraordinary just how bad this movie is" only to have only the following part of the sentence included on the poster. "Extraordinary"
TCJJ
But now you're assuming that the others were talented, interesting and really wonderful, and I'm pretty sure Akiva Goldsman is allergic to working with those sorts of people.
ProtectronPrime
Uh, okay, if you say so. Or maybe I was just ribbing @TCJJ a bit 'cause I know he can take a joke, while making a minor point that there were other people in there that may have been potentially decent. Never commented about the purpose of the writer's room, the quality of the ultimate product, or anything else for that matter.
It's cool if you like to enter debates, but I wasn't saying anything that warranted a debate, man.
Autobot Burnout
You're working on the logic of appeal, which was the entire point of the Writer's Room existing. Hasbro/Paramount wanted all those people with notable credentials working together for the sole purpose of appeasing the investors that they were working on improving the Transformers franchise, which was on a lifeline even though AoE made a billion dollars.
On their own? Yes, the writers (excluding Goldsman, who was the guy in charge for whatever reason) all had good things on their resumes. It doesn't change the fact that the end result – The Last Knight – is such an abomination of film that Paramount wanted to end the franchise immediately, canceling TF6 and only letting Bumblebee even see the light of day because it was too far along in production to stop (to cite @SilverOptimus).
And to sort of use your high school ranking metaphor, it doesn't even matter if one of them was the unhygenic idiot of the class, if the net work product of the entire class was unimaginably bad from everybody, not just the idiot. Everybody fails in that situation.
Necrisha
I would like to remind everyone shitting on Hailey's lack of career productivity that she's also a teenager, and a teenager more focused on finishing high school education than grabbing at any roles to come her way might be a far better sign than the travesties that have come from a few disney teen stars… Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus all have spend far more time on their acting and or music careers early on than any young person should, and it shows in how quickly they crashed and burned.
Also- Since when does being selective about what movies you act and direct in make you a terrible choice- Bay's loading himself up with credits nearing the end of his career and setting up his retirement. Travis DeKinght is up and coming, and understands Hollywood enough that he's not going to jump on utter crap to fill his credentials because it will do him no good in the long run.
ProtectronPrime
You can if there were other talented, interesting and really wonderful people in the room. Was your high school class ranked solely based on the kid that smelled vaguely liked pee, ate library paste and claimed his favorite flavor was seven?
ProtectronPrime
Anthony Hopkins totally saved TLK. I would gladly pay money to see another Anthony Hopkins Transformers Movie where he was a batshit crazy old man, behaving like a complete asshat to random people and screaming at giant robots for 2 hours.