Being helmed by Travis Knight, who directed the 2016 stop-motion animated film “Kubo and The Two Strings,” the “Transformers” spin-off “Bumblebee” will be the next film in the successful line of movies based on the popular toy line. This will mark the sixth th installment in the “Transformers” films that have so far collectively grossed well over two billion dollars at the box-office despite the negative reviews from both critics and audiences alike.

Although “Bumblebee” will be the next to be released in theaters, a proper sequel to “Transformers: The Last Knight” was scheduled to be developed by its proposed June 28, 2019 release date, but has now been removed by Paramount Pictures. The reason for this is due to the studio, along with Hasbro, wanting to begin a fresh take on the franchise that some  felt had been tarnished by director Michael Bay with his previous films in the franchise.

Paramount Pictures went ahead and hired Knight to place his own look and feel on the “Transformers” franchise by placing the “Bumblebee” film in the 80’s and therefore making it a prequel to previous installments. In the prequel, the Bumblebee character will return to his robotic roots and be portrayed by a Volkswagen Beetle as he was in the original cartoons. An attention to detail that will surely make fans of the original material happy. Along with the proposed reboot that will most likely take place after “Bumblebee” is released, Paramount Pictures and Hasbro plan on developing their own shared universe that will combine such franchises like “G.I. Joe”, “Micronauts”, and the aforementioned “Transformers”.

The idea of a cinematic shared universe is nothing new to Hollywood, with Marvel Studios most notably starting the trend, and has since been tried to be duplicated by Warner Bros. and Universal Pictures. “Bumblebee” is slated to be released in theaters this December.