Steven Caple Jr. shares a video of Peter Cullen recording a few lines for his return as Optimus Prime.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts director Steven Caple Jr. shared a short clip of voice actor Peter Cullen in the recording booth.
On Instagram, Caple posted a video of Cullen recording a few lines as Optimus Prime: “I am Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, what is left of them.” The Creed II director captioned the post with a goat emoji, with various celebrities responding to indicate their excitement for the upcoming Transformers installment, including Black Panther‘s Michael B. Jordan.
Before Rise of the Beasts, Cullen began voicing Optimus Prime in the original 1980s Transformers animated series. The Winnie the Pooh actor returned as the robot superhero for the 2007 live-action film, in addition to the franchise’s subsequent sequels and the spinoff Bumblebee. Cullen also lent his voice to the Transformers video games.
Optimus Prime Returns for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
On Dec. 1, Paramount unveiled the first trailer for the seventh Transformers installment. While the trailer doesn’t shed much light on Rise of the Beasts’ storyline, it hints at an upcoming conflict between the new Maximals, Terrocons and Predabots factions against both the Autobots and Decepticons. Following the trailer’s release, Paramount revealed that the teaser earned the most views for a theatrical trailer in the film studio’s history, with 238 million views in a single day. The Transformers film falls behind titles like Avengers: Endgame (289 million) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (355.5 million).
In addition to Cullen, Rise of the Beasts also features several dominant names in the film industry. Alongside the trailer, Paramount announced the studio had added Peter Dinklage, Liza Koshy, John DiMaggio and other actors to the cast. As for their characters, Dinklage plays Scourge, Koshy voices Arcee and DiMaggio is Stratosphere.
The upcoming film also includes David Sobolov as Rhinox/Battletrap, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez voicing Nightbird, Cristo Fernandez as Wheeljack and Tobe Nwigwe playing Reek. Paramount has previously confirmed Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, Michelle Yeoh, Pete Davidson, Peter Cullen and Ron Perlman’s involvement.
The upcoming Transformers film will be the first live-action entry directed by someone other than Michael Bay. Since joining the franchise in 2007, Bay looked back on his longtime involvement with regret. “I made too many of them,” Bay said of his five completed films. “Steven Spielberg said, ‘Just stop at three.’ And I said I’d stop.” Bay revealed the studio had begged him to do a fourth film and then later a fifth after the former earned over a billion dollars at the box office.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts releases in theaters on June 9, 2023.
