The 'Transformers' Franchise Goes Back to the Beginning with Netflix Animated Series 'War for Cybertron'

With the critically beloved “Bumblebee,” “Transformers” rewound to the yellow-and-black robot’s arrival on Earth in the 1980s. For their next franchise outing, they’re going all the way back to the beginning. The upcoming Netflix animated series “Transformers: War for Cybertron” will be an origin story for the race, but it won’t return to any version of the Transformers fans have previously experienced in countless movies and TV series.

“In this Transformers origin story, we will explore the expansive universe of Cybertron in a way that audiences have never seen before—to the delight of both existing fans and those coming to the franchise for the first time,” said Netflix Director of Anime John Derderian to Variety.

Netflix and franchise owners Hasbro are working to create the animated series with production company Rooster Teeth, which is part of WarnerMedia‘s Otter Media. Polygon Pictures is creating that new Transformers design, with series and films like “Star Wars: Resistance,” “GODZILLA: The Planet Eater” and “Fist of the Blue Sky REGENESIS” on their resume.

But even with that new look, they’re not straying too far from the “Transformers” universe fans have been experiencing outside of the big screen. ‘War for Cybertron”s showrunner will be FJ DeSanto, who worked on “Transformers: Titans Return” and “Transformers: Power of the Primes.” Both of those series were on Machinima, which was part of Otter Media until the brand was recently shut down. Fellow “Transformers” alumni Gavin Hignight (“Transformers: Cyberverse“) and Brandon Easton (“Transformers: Rescue Bots“) will join him in the writers room, as will George Krstic, who worked on another giant robot show, “Megas XLR,” for Cartoon Network.

“Transformers: War for Cybertron” is expected to land on Netflix in 2020, so start calibrating your algorithm with lots of anime and giant robots now so you’ll get it as a recommendation.