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Geek Exclusive: ‘Rise of the Beasts’ Director Steven Caple Jr. Wants More Predacons, Megatron And Gen-1 Nostalgia In Future ‘Transformers’ Films

Steven Caple Jr. was just 19 years old when he watched the 2007 Michael Bay-directed Transformers movie and little did he know that 16 years later, he would be directing a sequel to the long-running franchise and premiering it worldwide in Singapore, a country halfway across the world from his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. 

Rise of the Beasts is the seventh movie in the Transformers movie franchise following five of Bay’s movies, and Travis Knight’s Bumblebee prequel. Set in 1994, Caple Jr.’s entry takes viewers back to a time when cable TV was up-and-coming and Optimus Prime was not a fan of humans and was not keen on protecting them and Earth. It’s a different approach and timeline altogether, but it means Caple Jr. gets to leave his own stamp on the Transformers legacy. 

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“Oh, it’s really insane like I remember I was in college at the time, it was my freshman year, me and my roommate was like, ‘Let’s go watch Transformers!’ and my mind was just blown, like in terms of seeing the Autobots for the first time and transformations to slow motion shots, and we walked out like ‘That was crazy!’,” said the 35-year old director in an exclusive interview with Geek Culture. 

“What they did with Sam Witwicky, just everything the themes were on point so to be there, how many years later that now – 16 years later – is pretty insane like now put my own print on it and leave something behind for the Transformers legacy like it’s pretty cool.” 

Caple Jr. also grew up on the Transformers: Beast Wars animated series as an eight-year-old Transformers fan, and while the series only ran for three seasons, it left a big enough impact on the director, who then made a decision to the heroic Maximals from that series to the big screen for the first time. 

In fact, Rise of the Beasts has many firsts for the 35-year old. This is the director’s first time directing a massive Hollywood blockbuster of this scale as prior to this, Caple Jr. is perhaps best known for directing the boxing sequel, Creed II. This is the first time the Maximals are rolling out of animation, and it’s the first time the beasts and Autobots would be interacting together in live-action too. Oh, he’s also the first director to bring legendary Transformers villain, Unicron to life action. Talk about having big shoes to fill. 

Anthony Ramos and Steven Caple Jr.

And while being a Beast Wars fanboy was what pushed him in this direction for Rise of the Beasts’ story, it was his experience with Creed II, and the focus on, heart and themes, that supplemented the action audiences will see. 

“A lot of it was me being a fanboy, but what I wanted to do similar to Creed II is make sure there’s purpose behind the action so like whatever action we built – there is a ton of it in the last 40 minutes of the movie – it comes from a place of the stakes rising up and the mission getting more complicated, so it wasn’t action for the sake of action, like there was still story going on, there was still growth in characters and that’s important to me,” said Caple Jr. 

“Did it in Creed II in terms of the fights in the ring and the same with these action pieces, we get to see people work together who weren’t working together before, bad guys that you want to see live or die, things like that so I wanted to feed all of that. So it was a total fanboy, but a lot of it was just me making sure that the arc was there too.” 

Had Caple Jr. gone fanboy mode all the way in this movie, the director would have a lot more than just the Maximals in Rise of the Beasts, as he had in mind to include more factions and characters to rival the film’s heroes, but Caple Jr. understands that it’s simply not possible to add yet another storyline to the story he was telling. 

“Gosh. Yeah, I wanted more Predacons in the film. That was a huge piece for me. We had a lot of characters as is so it was really tough to try to fit in a Predacon storyline and yeah, that’s probably the biggest thing. I can’t say the next thing because I might actually do it for the next movie,” teased a smiley Caple Jr. 

Speaking of a potential next movie, the director hopes to bring a popular villain from the franchise back to the 90s, much like what he did with Optimus Prime. 

“I’m interested in where Megatron is – I think that would be interesting. We didn’t get to see him at Bumblebee clearly. I’m just curious of what we can do with him. I know where he’s technically at in the Bay-verse but I feel like where the franchise is at now, to revive that and see him in a different light and for our G1 fans out there, to see him in that kind of form will be really exciting at least for me, so to speak so I think that’s one that we haven’t seen or tapped into,” said Caple Jr. 

“And he’s such an iconic villain. Like, you know, he’s up there. When you mention villains of any sort of franchise, Megatron is on that list. We’re too deep into some movies now without seeing him for a while.”

Just like Rise of the Beasts, Caple Jr. wants his sequel to be banked on nostalgia as well. Despite being a major Beast Wars fan, the director will always return to G1 Transformers where it all started for many fans. 

“I love Beast Wars. I got a chance to see it as an older teenager and I got to appreciate it – like the storyline’s good, but I think it just wouldn’t be Beast Wars without G1, and that storyline and just the type of characters created, like the nostalgia of the franchise and what it did culturally during that time. Yeah, I can’t. I’m a total diehard.” 

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts rolls out on 8 June 2023.