According to Deadline, Judas and the Black Messiah breakout star Dominique Fishback has officially entered the final negotiations for the leading role in Paramount Pictures’ newest Transformers film, which will be directed by Steven Caple Jr. She, along with Hamilton alum Anthony Ramos, will be leading one of the newest installments to the blockbuster action franchise. It’s expected to debut in theaters on June 24, 2022.
The outlet notes that before Paramount locked in on Fishback as the female lead, they’ve first met with a number of actresses with Ramos screen-testing with a few of them. In the end, the chemistry between Fishback and Ramos, who have been close friends since college, has won over the studio.
Although Fishback was just recently coming from a powerful dramatic performance in Warner Bros. Pictures’ Fred Hampton biopic, the rising actress is no stranger to the action genre as she previously starred in Netflix’s superhero film Project Power alongside Jamie Foxx and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. She will also next be seen in Apple TV+’s limited series The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, starring Samuel L. Jackson.
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The next installment to the blockbuster Transformers film franchise will be helm by Creed II director Steven Caple Jr. from a screenplay written by Joby Harold. Further details about its plot and characters are still under wraps but are reportedly expected to pick up the story threads established in 2018’s “soft reboot” Bumblebee.
This casting news comes after it was recently announced that Paramount and eOne has enlisted Angel Manuel Soto to helm another Transformers movie that will tell a new story separated from the main film franchise. The studio is also currently developing an animated film based on the franchise, which hails from Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley.
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Paramount Pictures’ Transformers film series started in 2007 with Michael Bay directing the first film, which starred Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox. It went on to become an instant box office hit with a worldwide gross of over $700 million. Bay also directed four more sequels, with LaBeouf remaining as its lead in Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of Moon.
However, with 2014’s Age of Extinction, Mark Wahlberg has taken over the franchise as its new face up to 2017’s The Last Knight. The five Transformers films, along with Travis Knight’s Hailee Steinfeld-led Bumblebee spinoff, have a combined gross of over $4 billion, making it one of the studio’s highest-grossing franchises to date.