It looks like Bumblebee will finally find his voice in the upcoming Transformers spinoff, as IGN has revealed that Dylan O’Brien (The Maze Runner, American Assassin) is set to voice the fan favourite Autobot in this month’s Bumblebee movie.
“Since we were approaching this as an origin story, we felt that it was appropriate that you got to hear his voice,” said producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura with regards to the character, who in the Michael Bay movies was restricted to communicating via pre-existing media through his car radio. “That’s the simple logic that we employed. The longer term implication of that is different. But the short-term implication of that is, since we really are resetting the mythology, essentially, of who Bumblebee is. And so, that seemed to us to be the appropriate, to get the chance to hear what he sounds like.”
“Dylan has that great quality in his voice of youthful exuberance, and also sort of trustworthiness,” he continued. “I think those are the two qualities that we wanted Bumblebee to have. Thankfully, we’ve showed it to a few audiences, and people seem to think that it’d be right and an appropriate voice,” he said. “You never know, obviously that can be a sensitive thing for people. But it turns out, they imagine his voice that way.”
SEE ALSO: Transformers spinoff Bumblebee gets an extended sneak peek and TV spots
On the run in the year 1987, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard in a small Californian beach town. Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld), on the cusp of turning 18 and trying to find her place in the world, discovers Bumblebee, battle-scarred and broken. When Charlie revives him, she quickly learns this is no ordinary, yellow VW bug.
Bumblebee is directed by Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings), and stars Hailee Steinfeld (Edge of Seventeen), Pamela Adlon (Better Things), John Cena (Daddy’s Home 2), Stephen Schneider (Broad City), Jorge Lendeborg Jr. (Spider-Man: Homecoming), Jason Drucker (Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul), Kenneth Choi (American Crime Story), Ricardo Hoyos (Degrassi: Next Class), Abby Quinn (Landline), Rachel Crow (Deidra & Laney Rob a Train), Grace Dzienny (Zoo) and John Ortiz (Kong: Skull Island). It is set for release on December 21st 2018 in the States and December 26th in the UK.
