Bumblebee is an American science fiction action adventure film directed by Travis Knight and written by Christina Hodson. Based on Hasbro’s Transformers toy line, it is the sixth installment of the Transformers film series. Serving as both a spin-off and prequel to the 2007 film, the film stars John Cena, Hailee Steinfeld, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., John Ortiz, Jason Drucker, Stephen Schneider, and Pamela Adlon. The voice cast also includes Dylan O’Brien as the title character, with Grey Griffin, Angela Bassett, Justin Theroux, Peter Cullen, and Steve Blum.

On February 12, 2016, it was announced that the sixth film in the Transformers series. Principal photography for the film began on July 31, 2017, in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Vallejo, and Mare Island, California, and was scheduled to finish on November 16, 2017, under the working title Brighton Falls. Later in November 2017, the film was revealed to have changed its title to Bumblebee: The Movie (later being called simply Bumblebee), as well as having wrapped up filming.

Bumblebee received positive reviews, with critics praising its action sequences, Steinfeld’s performance, Knight’s direction, visuals, and the 1980s setting.

Interesting Facts About Bumblebee Movie:

• It was Travis Knight’s first live-action film, as well as the first film in the Transformers series not to be directed by Michael Bay, who instead acted as a producer.
• Peter Cullen (voice of Optimus Prime) is the only cast member to appear in every theatrically-released Transformers film. He had voiced the character in The Transformers: The Movie (1986) and reprised the role in live-action films, including this one.
• This film is set in 1987, the year the original The Transformers (1984) series ended.
• This is the first Transformers film to be shot entirely in a taller aspect ratio (1.85:1), although Revenge of the Fallen, Age of Extinction, & The Last Knight had IMAX-expanded sequences.
• In this film, Transformers take on a more classic look of the original cartoon series.
• With a budget of $102-128 million, this is the least expensive Transformers movie to date. Despite being the lowest-grossing Transformers film in the series (with a worldwide gross of $468 million), it was still considered a box-office success following the failure of Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), which reportedly lost $100 million.
• Hailee Steinfeld is the first female lead in the Transformers film franchise. She was not born until nine years after the setting of the film and had to be taught how to use some typical items of the ’80s era, such as how to work a Walkman, which was completely foreign to her.
• “Bumblebee” is the only movie in the “Transformers” theatrical film series to have a running time under 2 hours (approximately 1 hour, 54 minutes). All previous films clocked in at well over 2 hours.
• Travis Knight compared working in live action to his previous work in stop motion and said he treated scenes featuring the robots as if they were animated scenes, making extensive use of storyboards, breaking down the script, and planning out all the details.