‘Bumblebee’ Prequel Has a Vague Working Title and a Midsummer Official Production Start Date

Just a few weeks after Transformers: The Last Knight rolled into theaters, Paramount is getting that Bumblebee prequel on the fast track. Today we got the news of a rumored mysterious working title, an official title (complete with colon, like all of today’s young adult franchises), and an extremely soon production start date. Like, very soon. Like, within a couple of weeks from now.

Omega Underground has gathered that the movie may be filming under “Brighton Rock,” which doesn’t seem to be a clever reference to anything, but we won’t know that, of course, until we see the movie. Paramount might also go for a slightly more wordier title — Transformer Universe: Bumblebee — which fits with the studio’s plan to create a multi-series franchise out of Michael Bay’s Transformers movies. But, I mean, we’ll all just call it Bumblebee anyway.

The new Transformers movie will start shooting in Los Angeles and San Francisco on Monday, July 31st, which is an unusually speedy production start. But, dangit, Paramount is going to give us the Bumblebee movie we’ve all been clamoring for. Omega Underground notes that that production date is, coincidentally (or not?), the same day, 18 years ago, that Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant was released in theaters. Bumblebee director Travis Knight has said that he’s taking a lot of inspiration from that unbelievably perfect movie, which is great news for those of us who, like me, love to get emotional about robots.

Bumblebee hits theaters June 8, 2018.