Now, with its 35th anniversary this year, The Transformers: The Movie is making a brief return to theatres in remastered form. Fathom Events teamed up with Hasbro for this legendary rerun of The Transformers: The Movie in select theatres on Sunday, Sept. 26 and Tuesday, Sept. 28. Not only will these showings feature the newly remastered 4K footage, but also additional content not seen in previous releases.
The theatrical rerun is part of a year long celebration of the landmark movie’s release. While the first two seasons and accompanying toy-line consisting mostly of imported Japanese products recoloured and rebranded were successful enough, it was the 1986 movie that truly cemented the franchise as a lasting, mainstream success. Arguably, without The Movie, we wouldn’t be getting Transformers media and products today. Alongside the movie’s return to theatres, the remastered 4K version is getting a celebratory home media rerelease with various bonuses. Packed in a fancy steelbook case, this collector’s edition includes the movie, an additional disc full of behind the scenes footage and other special features, a poster, an artbook, and six exclusive ‘artcards’. This edition is being distributed by Zavvi for £39.99. Since all Transformers media essentially exists to promote a toy line, all of this anniversary fanfare is no different - previously reserved for figures based on designs from the newer, live action films, the Studio Series toy line received a Studio Series ‘86 subline including screen-accurate transformable toys of characters who appear in the original animated movie with plenty of accessories used to recreate key scenes. Amid the anniversary celebrations, it isn’t only old Transformers media in the spotlight - Kingdom was just released on Netflix, and the live-action series will continue next year with Rise of the Beasts. Additionally, two new cartoons are in the making.