“The script got me so excited,” says the director Josh Cooley, Pixar veteran and Oscar winner for Toy Story 4, of Transformers One, the first animated theatrical feature since 1986 and a new look into the Transformers universe, catapults audiences back millions of years to the beloved behemoths’ home planet of Cybertron to reveal the origins of Optimus Prime, supreme leader of the heroic Autobots, and his nemesis Megatron, the diabolical commander of the Decepticon forces. “It was an opportunity to reimagine the Transformers while still honoring their roots. And it made me laugh, which was one of the important reasons I agreed to do this film.”
In 2007, the release of the Oscar-nominated, live-action epic Transformers stormed the global box office with its electrifying depiction of warrior robots battling for dominance on Earth. Inspired by the unprecedented success of Hasbro’s groundbreaking line of transforming toys, the film became a global phenomenon, spawning six more record-breaking films over the next 17 years, racking up international box-office receipts of more than $5 billion.
Lorenzo di Bonaventura, producer for all eight Transformers films, says the idea of an origin story has been in the works since the beginning of the franchise. “But we always knew it wasn’t realistic to think it would be a live-action film. Animation gave us the ability to do things we have never been able to do, like create a whole new world that has never been seen before, but that somehow feels organic.”
A fan of the franchise since childhood, executive producer Zev Foreman, head of Hasbro’s film division, was eager to tackle a story that he knew people had been waiting for. “The rivalry between Optimus Prime and Megatron is legendary, but people never knew the reasons behind it — until now,” he explains. “They will be able to watch our lead characters evolve from their younger selves into the iconic characters that they know. This is the first time we see real emotion and thought in them. They want what everybody wants, which is to be able to figure out who they are and to make their own lives.”
From the first meeting, the producers knew that there was only one choice to direct this film: Josh Cooley.
“You always want a director who respects the vision of a property but has full confidence in his own innovations,” producer Mark Vahradiannotes. “Josh won the Oscar for a movie about toys. We had toys too, but ours were older, bigger, and more aggressive. He was up to that challenge. More importantly, as a brilliant writer and director, he was eager to explore the personal hopes and dreams of our alien robots, something we rarely did in the live-action movies where the Autobots were focused solely on protecting humanity.”
Presented in state-of-the-art CG animation by the wizards at Lucasfilm’s International Light & Magic (ILM), Transformers One will delight longtime fans of the franchise and inspire the devotion of a new generation, according to Cooley. Like millions of kids around the world, he grew up with the toys, was a devoted fan of the original animated TV show and sat transfixed in the theater by the 1986 animated film The Transformers: The Movie.
Transformers One, the explosive, long-awaited origin story of Optimus Prime and his archenemy Megatron, journeys from the depths of Cybertron’s pitiless Energon mines to the planet’s forbidden surface in a quest that will define the future of a civilization. A group of lowly cog-less worker bots, led by Orion Pax and D-16, make a daring excursion to retrieve the long-lost Matrix of Leadership and restore the free flow of Energon, their planet’s life blood. Instead, they uncover a centuries-old conspiracy that will set off the Transformers bots’ millennia-long civil wars. Presented in stunning, state-of-the-art CG animation and directed by Oscar® winner Josh Cooley, Transformers One opens the door on a new era for the record- breaking franchise.
The first animated Transformers feature in almost 40 years, Transformers One’s all-star voice cast includes Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi, with Laurence Fishburne and Jon Hamm, in the exhilarating adventure fans have been waiting decades to see.
From Page To Screen
The screenplay by Eric Pearson (Thor: Ragnarok) and Andrew Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari (Ant-Man and the Wasp), also impressed producer Aaron Dem, a 30-year veteran of the animation world. “One of my ambitions has always been to create an epic animated movie with the visual complexity of a live-action film and appeal for a wide audience,” says Dem. “The script was compelling from the start and Josh is an amazing storyteller. We’ve made a movie meant for people from 8 all the way up to 88.”
As the movie begins, the audience meets Orion Pax and D-16, a pair of lowly worker bots in the Energon mines deep within Cybertron. They are on the verge of a journey that takes them from being the best of friends to the bitterest of enemies. It is a classic tale, points out Cooley, echoing powerful stories from the past, even as far back as the Bible’s Cain and Abel.
“The film is essentially about their relationship,” the director continues. “They will become Optimus Prime and Megatron, the equivalent of the Titans in Greek mythology. Every decision I made, every story point, every design element goes back to that.”
Orion Pax and D-16 are at the bottom of the pecking order in Iacon City. Together they rise higher than either ever dreamed, but at the cost of their friendship. “You will have compassion for both of them,” says Dem. “And you will also understand what drives them both. You will witness the struggles that make them who they become. The story is as much an emotional journey as it is pure adventure, which I think is unique in Transformers history.”
Transformers One takes place before the civil war between the Autobots and the Decepticons destroys Cybertron, and eons before the bots arrive on Earth. “It’s before anything we’ve ever seen in Transformers,” Cooley says. “That meant we could invent new things to help support the story, while also making sure it felt relatable and believable by incorporating elements that feel similar to Earth.”
The filmmaker says he is grateful to Hasbro for encouraging innovation, while providing a wealth of background information covering decades of Transformers lore. “They provided a Tolkien-scale timeline, most of which I had never heard before,” he says. “I could ask about the different characters, or if something had been done before. We were able to incorporate things like the Matrix of Leadership, thought to have been lost forever.”
And for the first time in franchise history, the audience will experience the world completely through the eyes of the Transformers bots. “There are no human characters, so we had the opportunity to approach the technicalities of filmmaking in a completely different way,” Cooley says.
With each new element, the story got richer and the visuals more spectacular, according to Dem. “We built a team that was innovative every step of the way,” he explains. “Working with producers Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian was an absolute pleasure. Our production designer Jason Scheier and his team gave us amazing visuals that were then realized by ILM Australia. We had a story team and editors that
were constantly making it better with Josh. Chris Batty, our head of layout, created dynamic camera work that elevates the movie. The cast is amazing. Add Brian Tyler’s score and it brings everything together.”
A New Breed of Bot
Each successive chapter of the Transformers saga has included a visual update of the robots themselves, always referring to what Cooley calls Generation 1 from the 1980s television series. “We started by looking at what had been done before,” he says. “We put all the different styles and versions of the characters on big boards and then asked what they all had in common? What is that through-line that we need to incorporate in our design? And then what do these characters transform into when they’re on Cybertron instead of Earth?”
Production designer Jason Scheier went back to the roots of everything that made Transformers special. “Hasbro threw their entire visual bible at us, something I had never seen before,” he says. “We also looked at all the live-action movies. I became a sponge for everything Transformers.”
As the story begins, the hero bots are not yet true Transformers. Lacking the essential cog that their superiors possess, they are smaller and lack the ability to change their forms. “In general, they are a bit more rounded,” says Scheier. “As they evolve, they start to get more angular and their overall shape changes. In the original G-1 cartoon, the upper and lower parts of the body were balanced. We exaggerated the length of the legs and widened the feet so the characters feel like a big trapezoid, kind of like Superman.”
Because they spend most of their time working in the Energon mines, Orion and D-16 are dented and rusty. “Their paint is scratched and there are all these details that were fun to design,” says Scheier. “When they eventually get their cogs, it’s like they’re being reborn. Not only can they transform, their paint is brand new. The light hits them differently. The visual style begins to change.”
Head of cinematography Christopher Batty oversaw planning camera shots and compositions. “On a film like this, there is actually no physical camera,” he explains. “It all exists within the computer’s 3D programs, but we need to know where a camera would be. We emulate a real-life camera as much as possible including defining the lensing, so at the beginning of the film, we made it look more organic and handheld to reflect the bots’ lowly status.”
With no humans to compare them with for scale, Batty used a variety of camera maneuvers to indicate the evolving size of the robots. “When Orion and D-16 are miners, you can see the differences in their height compared to the other Iaconians. As they gain stature, we shot them from lower and lower angles, so it feels like we’re looking up at them.”
Designing the characters in 3D was an opportunity to do something totally different, says Cooley. “We always wanted the animation to have a handmade quality, almost like concept art come to life. With ILM, we were actually able to do that. There are moments that feel like paintings, but it still has the physics of real-world lighting and there’s real heft to these characters.”
According to Dem, the filmmakers and the craftspeople at ILM were equally excited about the collaboration. “The animation they’ve created on this film is some of the best I’ve ever seen. The visual complexity is staggering. We wanted to take this to a level beyond what’s been done before, and ILM was the perfect place to do it.”
Rob Coleman, creative director of ILM Sydney, was the initial animation supervisor for the film, followed later by Stephen King. “This is a beautifully crafted and designed movie,” Coleman raves. “The initial inspiration came from the ’80s cartoons and was redesigned to be three-dimensional by Amy Beth Christenson.”
The most important thing for Cooley was that the audience connects with the characters emotionally. “Josh wanted them to move like robots, but convey human emotions,” says King. “We made the characters’ bodies move in ways that didn’t draw any attention away from the expressions on their faces. We simplified the animation so that they would hit the poses a little harder. They don’t have the grace and arc that a human would.”
“In my early discussions with Josh, he emphasized that he wanted the faces designed so that a human audience could sense what they might be thinking,” adds Coleman. “Subtext was as important as text. We spent a great deal of time in the early development working on the eyes. They’re like camera lenses. They’ve got little shutters that open and close to make them appear as expressive as the human eye.”
All Is One
It has been said that the word “Transformers” is instantly recognized in any country in the world.
From the toys to the television series and the comics, video games and movies, the world has embraced Optimus Prime, Megatron and their followers for nearly half a century. Producer Dem believes that Transformers One has opened the door to unlimited possibilities to expand an already deeply loved universe.
“The Transformers world is such a great canvas to paint on,” he says. “To be a part of bringing it to such an exciting level has been a privilege. We’ve pushed the boundaries visually with our animation and brought authentic human emotion into it. It’s a complex story that is going to resonate with our core audience and attract new fans.
“When people walk into this movie, they’ll be expecting great action and a fast-paced story,” Dem continues. “And they will get exactly that. They will also get a heartful story. They’ll get comedy and drama and an adventure of a scale and scope they haven’t yet seen. This movie brings it all.”
One of the joys of this movie for Vahradian has been the ability to use the interactive animation process to perfect the storytelling. “We knew we had to do more than we had ever done in the live-action movies,” he says. “We were able to push the envelope in terms of camera movement and the physics of the world. With each iteration, the film became dramatically better, with more clarity, more color, more lighting, more shadows, more reflections, more everything. This film became more than cinema. At times, it becomes a deeply immersive physical experience, almost like a rollercoaster. That is unique.”
This latest episode is completely unique in the series, says di Bonaventura. “It is still an epic story filled with emotion, humor, betrayal and giant fights. If you’re a fan, it delivers on what you’re hoping to get. And if you’re not yet a fan, you’re experiencing something that you probably didn’t think Transformers had in it. There’s a resonance for anybody who’s had a deeply held emotional relationship with another person that fell apart. It’s emotional, it’s funny, it might make you cry.”
When Cooley took on the task of expanding one of the most popular sci-fi universes of all time, his hope was to bring back the feeling and the fun he remembers having about the original cartoon. Like so many others, Cooley has fond memories of the anticipation and excitement he felt all those years ago when he was glued to the television watching Optimus Prime and Megatron duke it out in each episode of the television series. He still feels the joy of getting a new Transformers toy to add to his collection. He has never forgotten the grief he experienced watching the death of Optimus in the 1986 animated feature.
“I am so honored to have become part of this franchise,” the director says. “I am very proud of what we were able to accomplish in a universe that is precious to so many people. There’s a lot of real love for the characters and the lore of it all. It is an enormous part of people’s childhoods and that was on our minds every single day. I hope our audience is surprised by the authentic emotion in this film, by the new type of action, by the new look of it, and that they find a bit of nostalgia as well. And who doesn’t love watching huge robots that punch each other?”
JOSH COOLEY (Director)
Josh Cooley is a director, screenwriter and voice actor. He is best known for his writing on the 2015 Pixar animated film Inside Out, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. In 2020 he won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature with his feature film directorial debut, Toy Story 4. Cooley has several projects in various stages of development. Most recently he wrote the live-action adaptation of the young adult novel Malamander for Sony Pictures, as well as a live-action/CGI hybrid film for Universal Pictures based on the classic Universal Monsters. Cooley also penned the live-action Tower of Terror for Disney and Scarlett Johansson, which is based on the popular theme park attraction. After graduating from art school Cooley was hired by Pixar Animation Studios as the first intern in the story department. He worked at Pixar Animation for 18 years, contributing to many notable features including The Incredibles, Ratatouille and Up. In 2015 Cooley became part of Pixar’s senior creative team and brain trust, helping to oversee such films as Coco, Incredibles 2, Onward and Soul.
ERIC PEARSON (Writer)
Eric Pearson currently has a robust schedule with several films in the works. He has three upcoming Marvel Studios releases set for 2025: Thunderbolts (May 5), The Fantastic Four: First Steps (July 25) and Blade (November 7). Pearson began his professional career at Marvel Studios in their writers’ program. Along with several screenplays, he wrote a majority of the short films from the Marvel “One-Shot” series, including “Agent Carter.” This short went on to become a TV series of the same name on ABC. Pearson wrote on both seasons of the series. Continuing his relationship with Marvel Studios, Pearson contributed writing at the pre-production and/or post-production stages of features Ant-Man, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Marvel Studios brought Pearson on to pen the screenplay for Thor: Ragnarok at the end of 2015 and then sent him to Australia to continue his work on the script throughout production. The film’s worldwide box-office take was over $850 million. At the beginning of 2019 Marvel Studios brought Pearson on to write Black Widow and then sent him to London (as well as other locations) to continue his work on the script throughout production (Pearson received the only “screenplay by” credit on the film). Black Widow was released during the pandemic but still achieved a worldwide box-office tally of $380 million, with over $125 million additionally in day-and-date streaming earnings. Also released in 2021, Godzilla vs. Kong made over $430 million worldwide. Pearson graduated from New York University, where he studied screenwriting at the Department of Dramatic Writing in their Tisch School for the Arts. He has twice appeared on Hollywood’s Black List, once for his script Perfect Match (co-written with Morgan Schechter) and again for his script Out of State.
ANDREW BARRER & GABRIEL FERRARI (Writers)
Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari are BFFs and writing-producing partners who hide from the horrors of the real world by constructing fortresses made of pure fiction. They’re best known for writing Ant-Man and the Wasp. They hope you like this movie.
