There’s a photograph on the wall behind Lorenzo di Bonaventura. The producer is on Zoom to talk Transformers: Rise of the Beasts with Total Film, but the pictufe is diverting: ‘It’s actually Jerry Garcia in a top hat; I bought it because I thought it was so hilarious.’ The picture is the perfect fusion of chaos and order: Garcia’s band, the Grateful Dead, were poster boys for counterculturalism.
Di Bonaventura has been along for the ride with the Transformers since the first live-action film, which hit cinemas in 2007. As the series progressed, you might say it became increasingly anarchic, prioritising spectacle over substance. Then, along came Bumblebee, and popped a top hat on the franchise.
was a conscious decision to make a more intimate movie,’ says di Bonaventura. Not because they felt the previous five Michael Bay-directed outings were missteps, says the producer, but because they didn’t want to overstay their welcome by making a sixth movie that was the same, with ‘all the big noise and smashing’. is a more character-driven director Steven Caple Jr., ‘heart and softer moments’. There’s a little more order to the chaos.
