Ron Perlman's Role In Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts Is Perfect Casting

The seventh live-action "Transformers" movie, "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts," is currently in production for a scheduled June 2022 release. The cast will be led by "In the Heights" star Anthony Ramos and "Judas and the Black Messiah" and "Project Power" breakout Dominique Fishback, and will feature "Dexter" star Lauren Vélez in a major live-action supporting role. It will also bring back Peter Cullen as the voice of Transformer leader Optimus Prime. And it was just reported that a very exciting actor has joined the voice cast: Ron Perlman, ubiquitous star of film and television, and operator of a highly entertaining Twitter account.

Perlman is known for a great many things, particularly in geek circles. He was the affable half-demonic paranormal investigator Hellboy in Guillermo del Toro's superhero comic adaptations. He was the brutal biker gang leader Clay Morrow on the hit crime drama series "Sons of Anarchy." He's the narrator of the "Fallout" video game series. And most appropriately for "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts," he was Vincent, the Beast, on the fantasy drama series "Beauty and the Beast." This was the role that made him a star, and he won a Golden Globe for it in 1989 (via IMDb). So he's coming full-circle by returning to a "Beast"-themed story.

He's playing a character he's voiced before, in fact — and one who should be familiar to any hardcore "Transfomers" fan or child of the 1990s.

Collider reports that Ron Perlman will provide the voice of Optimus Primal, a robot who transforms into a gorilla and leads the Autobots-affiliated group the Maximals, in "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts." He previously voiced the character on the 2018 animated series "Transformers: Power of the Primes," but not in the nineties series that previously focused on the animal Transformers, "Beast Wars: Transformers" (Garry Chalk voiced the heroic gorilla-bot in that one).

In the film, Optimus Primal is older than the other Maximals like rhino-bot Rhinox and falcon-bot Airazor, and he "takes care of his own," according to Collider. He is not a different version of Optimus Prime, but rather, he was named in tribute to the Autobot leader, whom he admires.

"Transformers: Rise of the Beasts" will be a direct sequel to 2018's "Bumblebee." It will follow Noah (Ramos), a military veteran in 1994 Brooklyn who gets caught up in the ongoing war between the alien super-robots the Autobots and the Decepticons, who in this story will be joined by the Maximals (Autobots) and the Predacons and Terrorcons (Decepticons), the latter of whom are led by the movie's big bad, an Autobot-killer known as the Scourge. The movie is set to be directed by "Creed II" director Steven Caple Jr. and written by Darnell Metayer and Josh Peters from a story by "Obi-Wan Kenobi" writer Joby Harold. 

"Transformers: Rise of the Beasts" is currently slated to be released on June 24, 2022.