With the hands of Michael Bay shaping the first entry in the Transformers franchise with 2007’s Transformers, no one had any clue just how big the film series would turn out to be. With more than five major films and a spin-off installment, along with another film soon joining the list, the franchise has no end in sight.
And spearheading the success of the franchise from the start to the third film was Shia LeBeouf, who played the role of Sam Witwicky, the main human protagonist alongside the automated protectors of Earth. But despite giving it his all for the franchise, the star still felt that the series was slowly moving to the point of becoming irrelevant until he was proven wrong by Mark Wahlberg.
Shia LeBeouf Called The Transformers Franchise Irrelevant
With the release of Transformers in 2007, the audience was mesmerized by the exceptional work that went behind the creation of these mechanical extraterrestrial beings from the planet Cybertron. The astounding CGI work, mixed with thrilling action and an engaging story, the film turned into a thriving franchise seemingly overnight and is still continuing to go strong. But Shia LeBeouf, the star who was part of the original film that gave birth to such a successful franchise, believes that the series lacked purpose.
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Talking about his life in a past interview, LeBeouf also recalls his final appearance as Sam Witwicky in 2011’s Transformers: Dark of The Moon. When asked about his decision to leave as well as what he thought about the franchise and the direction it was headed, the actor first gave gratitude to the creators of the series and then pointed out some flaws in the progression of the series as a whole, which he called repetitive and lackluster. He said:
“My hang-up with those films was that they felt irrelevant. They felt dated as fuck… You come up on these stories about Easy Rider and Raging Bull and De Niro and Scorsese and Hopper, and you find value in what they do. Meanwhile, you’re chasing energon crystals. It’s very hard to keep doing what you’re doing when you feel like it’s the antithesis of your purpose on this planet.”
Although he felt that the film would just remain what it is and slowly fade away as its appeal would start to wane, Mark Wahlberg‘s entry into the franchise in Transformers: Age of Extinction changed the narrative entirely as it became the highest-grossing entry in the series with a whopping $1.1 Billion box office collection.
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What’s Next For The Transformers Franchise?
After four long years of waiting, the time has finally come for Optimus Prime and the Autobots to make their reappearance in the upcoming Transformers: Rise of The Beasts. The film would be loosely based on the Beast Wars storyline from the lore and will pin the Autobots against a new enemy and a power that threatens the existence of planet Earth. To save the world from destruction, they would have to work with humans as well as the arcane Maximals faction of Transformers.
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Transformers: Rise of The Beasts, in cinemas on 9th June 2023.
Source: Esquire
