NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 05: Steven Caple Jr. attends Paramount’s “Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts” premiere at Kings Theatre on June 05, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images)
By Anthony D’Alessandro | Deadline
After the Transformers was gearing down, filmmaker Steven Caple Jr. was able to put gas back into the tank of the storied Paramount Hasbro movie franchise with Rise of the Beasts this weekend which opened to $171M worldwide, stealing the crown from Sony Animation’s strong Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. On today’s episode of Crew Call, Caple Jr. tells us he’s in talks for another Transformers sequel — and much of that involves that cliffhanger scene between Anthony Ramos and Michael Kelly.
There’s actually a comic-book that pertains to that potential future movie. Caple Jr. snuck that moment in the Beasts script, and hopefully that story comes to fruition. Listen on.
We also chat with Caple Jr. about making a sequel for a more diverse audience — a conceit that wasn’t in the script when he boarded. That was achieved this weekend with Rise of the Beasts pulling in 30% Black and 28% Latino and Hispanic moviegoers (a huge spike from Bumblebee which drew 25% Latino and Hispanic and 14% Black).
Offshore, and excluding China’s $40M, the $70M overseas debut for Beasts is 36% ahead of previous Transformers title, Bumblebee, which opened during the Christmas corridor in 2018. Beasts’ domestic debut of $61M reps a near two fold surge over Bumblebee‘s $21.6M opening.