Transformers: The Last Knight is nearly ready to explode onto cinemas screens across the world, and with anew issue of Empire exploding onto newsstands this week, the world’s favourite movie magazine is pleased to present an exclusive new look at the latest serving on Bayhem. Take a look at this never-before-seen shot below, and click to embiggen.
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The photo shows series regular and Autobot hero Bumblebee, in amongst a traditional Michael Bay conflagration. The new issue of Empire features some extraordinary access to the action movie director, detailing some eye-popping insights into the billion-dollar franchise and its new writers-room approach.
The last film in the franchise was, Age Of Extinction, was “kind of an outlier,” Bay explains in the new Empire. “Because of losing Shia and just figuring out where we were gonna go. It was testing the waters a little bit. This gets us back in the groove”.
Bay’s writers, meanwhile, tell us how they quickly realised that pretty much anything they asked for, they’d get. They had written an English castle-dweller called Sir Edmound Burton, who holds secrets of Transformers lore. “We said, ‘He’s an Anthony Hopkins-type character,’” says co-writer Ken Nolan. “And two days later Michael’s like, ‘So, we’ve got Anthony Hopkins.’” Another new character is Cogman, a psychotic robot butler (“He constantly wants to kill people,” says co-writer Art Marcum) who has been excitedly described by Spielberg as “the greatest four-and-a-half-foot character since Yoda”. Co-writer Matt Holloway, a Downton Abbey fan, one day said as an aside, “It would be so funny if Jim Carter voiced this character.” A short while later, Bay announced, “Jim Carter — we got him.” “It’s good to be Bay,” says Nolan. “Everybody says yes.”
To read the full, insane, behind-the-scenes journey of the Transformiverse, be sure to pick up a copy of the new issue of Empire, on sale Thursday. Want to get your copy days before anyone else? Subscribe to Empire here{