Dexter and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse star Luna Lauren Velez says she’s set to play Anthony Ramos’ mom in the upcoming Transformers 7.
Transformers 7 casts Dexter star Luna Lauren Velez in a key role. Director Michael Bay launched the Transformers movie franchise, based on the popular 1980s toy line and animated show, in monster fashion in 2007. Starring Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox, the film went on to gross $709 million worldwide. Bay would continue to steer the Transformers ship as director for the 2009 sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($836 million worldwide) and the 2011 follow-up Transformers: Dark of the Moon ($1.124 billion worldwide), with LaBeouf back in the lead role for both films.
LaBeouf then jumped ship for 2014’s Transformers: Age of Extinction ($1.014 billion worldwide), but Mark Wahlberg thankfully arrived to fill the star void, with Bay still at the directorial helm. Bay and Wahlberg would team up again for 2017’s Transformers: The Last Knight, but diminishing box office returns (only $605 million worldwide) led to changes for the Transformers movie universe. The new Transformers era began with the scaled down 2018 spinoff Bumblebee ($468 million worldwide), directed by Travis Knight and starring Hailee Steinfeld. The next planned live-action Transformers movie at Paramount will see another new director hopping aboard in Steven Caple Jr., with Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback already cast in the lead roles.
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Another casting addition to Transformers 7 has now been revealed. Speaking to ComicBookMovie.com, Dexter and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse star Velez revealed she’s been added to the film as the mother of Ramos’ character. Ramos is said to play a flawed hero who seeks redemption with the help of Optimus Prime. Velez wouldn’t go into more specifics but did say it was exciting to join the Transformers franchise, although she admitted she hasn’t seen any of the prior Transformers movies.
Velez will of course be most familiar to television fans as Maria LaGuerta, the police captain running Miami Metro Homicide on Showtime’s Dexter, though she’s appeared in a number of other series including Oz, Ugly Betty, How to Get Away With Murder and Blue Bloods. On the movie side, Velez voiced Miles Morales’ mom Rio in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and also had roles in everything from the most recent Shaft remake to The First Purge to the 2019 horror film Swallow. Her next film Rogue Hostage teams her with Tyrese Gibson, John Malkovich and Michael Jai White in an action thriller about a hostage crisis. Velez unfortunately won’t be back for the planned Dexter reboot as her character was killed off late in the show’s original run.
Transformers 7 obviously represents a big feather in Velez’s cap as she is taking on a significant role in a major franchise. The next Transformers adventure is certainly sounding interesting when it comes to cast, with buzzworthy performers Ramos and Fishback leading the way and Velez lending her able supporting skills to the mix. It will be fascinating to see how Caple blends things together as the Transformers franchise continues to move forward after the major shift represented by Bumblebee. Transformers 7 does not yet have a release date.
Source: ComicBookMovie.com
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