A girl and her car are at the center of the “Transformers” reboot Bumblebee, available now on Blu-ray Disc, DVD, 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc and digital from Paramount Home Media Entertainment.
And that’s just as screenwriter Christina Hodson intended.
“As soon as I got the call about working within the ‘Transformers’ franchise I knew I wanted to tell a female-driven story,” she said in an interview with Media Play News on the Paramount lot.
It’s something that blockbuster action franchises rarely feature.
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“Honestly, it’s more about the big picture for me; it’s just about seeing girls in these kinds of roles,” she said. “I think we haven’t seen it often enough. We see so many movies where we just take for granted that it’s the boy or the man that’s at the lead going on the adventure.… It’s wonderful to just introduce into the world a new spin on that, to see a woman — forgive me — at the steering wheel.”
She based the character of Charlie on her two nieces. One is neither a “girly-girl” nor a “tomboy,” but “something in between” like Charlie, she said. Another has a special relationship with her dad that inspired Charlie’s.
Hodson said she wants more women to get into screenwriting to provide more balance.
“The numbers are crazy, and we’ve got to work on fixing them, and the one thing that I can say — knowing a lot of the female screenwriters of my generation — is we are bringing more women up with us,” she said. “That’s very much our goal.”
To talk about Bumblebee, editor-in-chief Stephanie Prange visited the Paramount lot to learn about the sound effects and more:
She also talked to screenwriter Hodson about the need for more girl power in the movies. Here is the full interview:
Gibson and Vaughn star as two hard-boiled veteran cops who attempt to hijack a bank heist. The film also stars Jennifer Carpenter (“Dexter”), Michael Jai White (“Black Dynamite”), Don Johnson (Django Unchained) and Udo Kier (Downsizing).
Reuniting the lead actors from Young and Dangerous, the film stars stars Ekin Cheng, Jordan Chan, Michael Tse, Chin Ka Lok and Jerry Lamb in a story about a group of former mercenaries who reunite to plan an epic heist: taking a truck full of medicine held by a foreign intelligence agency to supply an refugee camp in need. When they find the truck is actually filled with stolen gold, the band of brothers realize they’ve been double-crossed by one of their own.
Gina Rodriguez (Annihilation,“Jane the Virgin”) plays a young woman caught in the perilous world of a brutal cross-border cartel who finds powers she never knew as she seeks to rescue her friend. Ismael Cruz-Córdova (Mary Queen of Scots) stars alongside Rodriguez as the cartel kingpin, whose growing attraction to his strong-willed female hostage raises the stakes for both as the CIA, DEA and rival cartels close in. The film is directed by Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight).
In the fast-paced thriller, Statham stars as professional assassin Chev Chelios, who learns his rival has injected him with a poison that will kill him if his heart rate drops. Also starring are Amy Smart, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Efren Ramirez, Carlos Sanz and Dwight Yoakam.
Coming on DVD March 5 is the drama 
The Last Appeal
In the action film
For the family audience March 5 is the DVD 
On tap March 12 are three Western collections on disc and digital.
The four-film 
On Blu-ray and digital March 12 is the Westerm double feature 
Also due March 12 is the drama 
The drama double feature 
Finally, March 12 come two faith documentaries.
Also coming on DVD and digital March 12 is 
Bonus features include the new featurette “The Making of Double Dragon,” featuring interviews with stars Scott Wolf and Marc Dacascos, writers Peter Gould and Michael Davis, and producer Don Murphy; the new featurette “Don Murphy: Portrait of a Producer”; an archival making-of featurette; a behind-the-scenes featurette; the 1993 “Double Dragon” animated series pilot episode “The Shadow Falls”; a storyboard gallery; press photos, marketing and behind-the-scenes photo galleries; TV spots; a VHS home video trailer; the original theatrical trailer; a collectible mini-poster; and a reversible sleeve featuring alternate artwork.
The mystery-shocker Happy Birthday to Me (1981) follows popular high school senior Virginia Wainwright (Melissa Sue Anderson), who survives a freak accident, but suffers from memory loss and traumatic blackouts. As she attempts to resume a normal life, something terrible is happening — her friends are ruthlessly murdered one-by-one. Will she be the next victim or is she the killer? The terrifying truth is finally uncovered at Virginia’s 18th birthday party.
Chuck Norris, six-time World Karate Champion, stars in Silent Rage (1982), his first suspense film, as the tough, street-fighting sheriff of a small Texas town terrorized by a psychotic killer. He is faced with the dilemma of stopping the invincible murderer, made virtually indestructible through genetic engineering. A young group of researchers are responsible for developing the serum, and the head of the research institute is determined to continue the genetic experiments regardless of the consequences. Norris’s sheriff singlehandedly routs a dozen brutal bikers from a truck stop hangout, while rekindling an old romance with Alison Halman (Toni Kalem), a researcher at the institute.
In Last Action Hero (1993), young movie fan Danny Madigan (Austin O’Brien) knows the first three Jack Slater movies by heart, and the fourth one is just about to be released. With the aid of a magical ticket, while watching the opening action sequence during an advance screening, Danny is transported into the movie. On the other side of the silver screen, Danny becomes the sidekick of Slater (Arnold Schwarzenegger), the toughest cop on the police force. Complications arise when one of the bad guys takes Danny’s magic ticket and escapes out of the movie into the real world. Danny and his hero must chase the arch villain in the real world, a world where evil guys can actually win.
In the classic teen comedy Hardbodies (1984), three middle-aged geezers move into a swinging beach house and hire a young stud to teach them how to score with the local beauties. The ‘80s band Vixen and hundreds of Southern California swimsuit models co-star in the cult comedy originally made for broadcast on the Playboy Channel but picked up for theatrical release by Columbia. Stars include Grant Cramer, Teal Roberts, Courtney Gains, Kane Hodder and Gary Wood.
The sci-fi fantasy Krull (1983) explores a mystical time and place that belongs to neither the past nor the present, where extraordinary creatures of myth work their incredible magic, and where a horrific, omnipotent Beast is the ruler. Prince Colwyn sets out on a daring mission to rescue his young bride who is held captive by the Beast, but slayers and alien beings under the command of the Beast oppose him at every turn. Colwyn must first reach a faraway cavern to recover the legendary Glaive, a flying blade capable of phenomenal powers.
In Who’s Harry Crumb? (1989), John Candy stars as the bumbling private eye Crumb. When Harry, the last of the great sleuthing Crumbs, finally gets a shot at a frontpage kidnapping, it’s only because his boss Eliot Draisen (Jeffrey Jones) doesn’t want the case solved. At stake is the gorgeous daughter of multi-millionaire P.J. Downing, a $10 million ransom, and Draisen’s mistress (Annie Potts). Attired in a bizarre array of goofball disguises, from a Hungarian hairdresser to a hefty housewife, Harry is determined to crack the case.
Alanna Masterson (“The Walking Dead”) and George Byrne star as a couple on a romantic getaway at a secluded cabin that takes a frightening turn. Shortly into their vacation, the young couple realizes that the cabin isn’t nearly as secluded as they think because their every move is being watched by the cabin’s creepy owner. The film is directed by Jason Goldberg (co-creator, “Punk’d”).
Coming on VOD and digital Oct. 9 is the South Korean sports comedy Champion, in which a former arm-wrestling champion raised in the U.S. returns to South Korea for a tournament that could return him to glory, but finds his life complicated by the appearance of the biological family he never knew.
Due Oct. 16 is the actioner Buybust, from the Philippines, on digital, Blu-ray Combo Pack and DVD. In the film, after surviving the slaughter of her entire squad in a drug raid compromised by dirty cops, an anti-narcotics special operative is eager to go head-to-head with the drug cartels that hold a bloody grip on Manila. But when her new mission in the city’s most dangerous slum goes south, the angry civilians turn on her squad. Special features include a making-of featurette and a 2018 Comic-con panel.
Also on tap Oct. 30 from Well Go is the South Korean film Believer, directed by Lee Hae-Young (The Silenced), the remake of Johnnie To’s Drug War. The film is available on digital, Blu-ray Combo Pack and DVD. The story follows an investigator who, in an effort to bring down the boss of Asia’s biggest drug cartel, conspires with a lowly member of the gang seeking revenge against the boss.
Coming on digital Oct. 2 and DVD Nov. 6 is the Chinese film Girls Vs. Gangsters, the sequel to 2014’s Girls. After a drinking contest with some questionable local spirits at an out-of-control bachelorette party, five friends wake up naked on a beach to discover one of them is handcuffed to a locked suitcase, one has a strange new tattoo, and none of them have any clue what happened the night before.