I rarely criticize the marketing campaigns because it is what it is, but it truly had an abysmal marketing campaign. They were trying to sell it too soft and so it became like we were selling an animated movie or something. But the result of it was that the movie is really loved. It re-engaged the audience in a very different way and was very successful in that. I think from a financial point of view, you’re right, it was a modest success. But for the franchise, it was a big success. It reminded the audience of their sort of elemental connection to these metal beings and why we love them and why we care about their personality. So I think on that level, it was a smashing success. The best measure is we got to go on ahead and make another Transformers movie.

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You recently announced Transformers: Rise of the Beasts — how will that continue the thinking from Bumblebee or perhaps rethink the franchise?

I’ll say this: The first Transformers movie and the Bumblebee movie both got into that sense of wonder and that first connection between man and machine. So we’re hoping to replicate, in many ways, what we did in Transformers 1, which was tell a very emotion-driven story with big, wild experience. Bumblebee reminded us of our roots, in a sense.