After the movie disappointed at the box office, Transformers One director Josh Cooley has admitted Paramount Animation is “not interested” in making a sequel.
Transformers One director Josh Cooley has said a sequel isn’t happening.
The 46-year-old filmmaker had helmed the 2024 flick for Paramount Animation, though Cooley has now said the studio is “not interested” in making a follow-up to Transformers One.
Speaking on a panel at the Transformers convention BotCon, the director said: “I wish I had something to announce, but I do not. What I’ve been told is that Paramount Animation is not interested in making a sequel.
“That’s what I was told. I wish we could. I have ideas, too. So it would have been cool. We’ll see what happens. You never know.”
Transformers One – which stars Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Brian Tyree Henry and Jon Hamm – explores the origins of Optimus Prime and Megatron as allies on Cybertron before a rift turned them into enemies.
As war brews, their choices shape the fate of their world – and the future of all Transformers.
When Transformers One released in September, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura teased the film could be the start of a trilogy.
When Collider asked di Bonaventura and Cooley if a trilogy was possible, the producer said: “I don’t think anything’s changed for us.
“The truth of the matter is you never get to the second movie unless everybody shows up at the box office. We both said to ourselves, ‘This is way too hard to make one good movie to start thinking a lot about the second movie.’”
While the picture was received well by critics, Transformers One had a disappointing performance at the box office.
On a production budget of roughly $75 million, Transformers One pulled in $129.4 million, making it one of the lowest-grossing movies in the franchise.
Di Bonaventura – who has been attached to the Transformers series since 1986’s The Transformers: The Movie – teased Transformers One had several plot threads about Optimus Prime (Hemsworth) and Megatron (Henry) that could easily be picked up in a future film.
He said: “Along the way, there were ideas that we were like, ‘Well, that can’t fit in here. Let’s hold onto that. Let’s not forget that idea.’ Although I’m sure we’ve forgotten some of them.”
Cooley agreed and added they were definitely playing with the idea of making sequels to Transformers One, but emphasised that he and di Bonaventura were going to wait to “see what happens” with the movie.
He said: “I can’t help but … Yes, we were thinking of this one story for this moment, for this movie, but it’s about towards the last year of a film where I can’t help but go like, ‘Well, how would this [to] naturally progress?’
“So we’ve got some ideas, we talked about a few things, and we’ll see what happens.”
Transformers One gets disappointing update from director Josh Cooley
