Hailee Steinfeld may be teaming up with an Autobot. The Hollywood Reporter writes that the Oscar-nominated actress is in talks to topline “Bumblebee,” Paramount’s first “Transformers” spinoff.
Little is known about the plot of the Christina Hodson-penned project except for the fact that the “Pitch Perfect 2” actress will “play a tomboy who also holds a job as a mechanic after school,” according to THR.
Hodson has a number of high-profile projects in the works, including “Gotham City Sirens,” the “Suicide Squad” spinoff centering on Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn and other female villains and heroes from DC. Hodson’s previous credits include “Unforgettable” and “Shut In.”
Steinfeld scored an Oscar nod in 2011 for “True Grit.” She most recently appeared in last year’s “The Edge of Seventeen,” written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig. The coming-of-age film — and Steinfeld’s performance — earned rave reviews.
“The search for our lead, Nadine, was massive and lengthy. We literally auditioned a thousand girls over the course of more than a year. We scoured the entire planet,” Fremon Craig told us. “We knew we couldn’t make the film if we didn’t have the right actress. Nadine is a tough role to pull off because she’s many antithetical things at once — she’s tough as nails but incredibly fragile, she makes you laugh then shatters you completely, and she feels everything deeply but pretends like it’s all rolling off her back,” she explained. “Hailee Steinfeld came in to read very late in the game and she captured all of it and more, and with a miraculous effortlessness. She’s a force of nature.”
Scheduled for release June 8, 2018, “Bumblebee” will be directed by Travis Knight (“Kubo and the Two Strings”).
