This week it was announced that John Cena will be starring alongside Hailee Steinfeld in the upcoming Transformers spin-off, Bumblebee. With the latest entry in the franchise, The Last Knight, totaling less at the box office than its equally noisy predecessors, there is a great deal riding on this first solo adventure. It has been suggested that Paramount wants to return to some of the original story and design elements that older fans would recognize in the hopes of luring them back to the fold. Along with the revelation that Bumblebee would be taking place in the 1980s - the hairspray and neon pastel decade of the franchise’s birth - it opens a great deal of speculation that Cena could be playing a familiar human character from the lore, and despite being called The Transformers, there are plenty of humans to choose from.
The path of least resistance would find John Cena playing yet another member of the Witwicky family. The live-action franchise has played fast and loose with its own continuity, let alone what was established in pre-existing lore, so there are a few members of the Witwicky clan whom we’ve yet to see. While the film’s creative team could introduce an original character, there are still a few from the canon who have yet to be adapted: Sparkplug, Daniel, Buster, and Spike.
Of all of the Witwicky options, Spike is the most likely option. The connection to the lore is there: in the original 1984 cartoon, Spike and Bumblebee were a kid-friendly duo who would go off and have adventures. The first two seasons of the show heavily invested in kids buying into their friendship (and, through them, the toys). Of course, in the Michael Bay-directed films, Bumblebee’s relationship with Sam adopts a similar pattern. To “refresh” the relationship, Paramount may choose to make an important alteration.
In this instance, Cena would be playing a version of Sparkplug, Spike’s father. Since Wahlberg's Cade Yaeger was already a mechanical genius, the writers will change Sparkplug into something more effusive; a former soldier, perhaps - Cena loves playing those - or a similarly active authority figure. The focus would still be on Bumblebee and Spike, but with Hailee Steinfeld playing Spike. The gender bend has become a go-to for adapting works into film and televised media in recent years, and the change might do the character of Spike some good. In the lore, Spike has usually grown up to become a soldier (Transformers has many already) or an interstellar diplomat. Given the earthbound nature of Bumblebee’s story (as well as the Michael Bay Transformers films in general), recasting Spike as a teenage girl (in the 80s no less) could add a kitschy charm, fun, and sincerity that the live-action films have been missing.
The drawback, of course, is that we’ve had a setup like this in 2014’s Age of Extinction with Cade Yaeger and his daughter Tessa. However, their relationship was frayed to say the very least, and Tessa herself barely had any scenes opposite a Transformer and wasn’t even in this year’s follow-up, The Last Knight. If this set-up between Steinfeld’s character and Bumblebee is accurate, it would reshuffle what we’ve already seen and add a new and decidedly female lead to the human cast.
On the opposite end of the hope-spectrum, there comes the chance Cena is playing Daniel Witwicky. Daniel is likewise from the 1984 cartoon series and is a shrill irritant who makes Neelix from Star Trek: Voyager look like John Wayne. That said, in one continuity, Daniel did grow up to be a badass soldier (though he was summarily executed quickly to the chagrin of no one). As an adult, with his tapered hair, square chin and network of muscles, Daniel did resemble a character Cena could play. Regardless, the name is a stigma and one that Transformers fans would not respond to positively.
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Finally, there’s Buster. Anyone familiar from the old Marvel Transformers comic will recognize him. Despite wearing the same pink shirt for 99 straight issues, and despite being the first in a long line of teenage, human sidekicks, Buster was one of the best. He gave the war between the Transformers a human face, and through him we understood just how giant those robots were and how dangerous their existence on our planet was. While ostensibly an Autobot ally, he had complicated feelings about the Transformers as time went on. His arc, as he grew into adulthood, was more about the loss of innocence to war. While Cena is much too old to play a teen, Buster was a long-standing character, who was well into his forties by the time Regeneration One wrapped up his story.
Outside of the inescapable Witwicky family is Garrison Blackrock. Like most long-term human characters in the Transformers, he’s had his origins tweaked depending on the continuity. Originally a successful businessman, Blackrock became a major supporter of the Autobots and used his own money to create a superhuman defense force known as the Neo-Knights (who were definitely not anything at all like the Fantastic Four. Not at all. No.) In the current continuity (from IDW Publishing), Blackrock is Titan Master disguised as a human; in Blade Runner terms, he’s a skin-job.
The chances of Cena playing a comic-accurate Blackrock is as likely him playing Chip “Courage!” Chase. However, Blackrock had some moments of interspersed badassery. Considering his modern incarnation as a Transformers cousin, Blackrock’s a unique character with the potential to surprise audiences while also living up to the expectation that Cena will be heavily involved in action scenes.
While Cena could end up playing any number of established characters, it is highly likely that Bumblebee will go with Cade Yaeger route and give his character a vaguely familiar biography. However, as audacious as it would be to go the route of a female Spike with a younger Sparkplug, Cena is still better at playing military characters.
What may be more audacious - if not just as unlikely - would be that Cena is someone from the Hasbro shared universe. With Marvel and DC telling expansive stories in several films, Hasbro has desired to do the same with their properties licensed through Paramount. Recently, the company has confirmed that both their comic book and movie properties for Transformers and G.I. Joe operate in the same universe. The two franchises have already seen innumerable crossovers over the years, but the latest one is now officially canon. It also included Hasbro’s latest acquisition: Rom, which tested fan interest in expanded use of the character.
Hasbro and Paramount have been quiet as to where and when their shared film universe will begin or what it will contain. However, Hasbro’s properties contain a treasure trove of 80s nostalgia, comprising The Transformers, G.I. Joe, Micronauts, Rom, Jem and the Holograms, Action Man (not the one from The Venture Bros.), M.A.S.K., Clue (yes, the board game; worked out well for Battleship, didn’t it?) and Visionaries.
With the desire to lure back lapsed/exhausted fans, the combination of possibly returning the franchise to its roots along with the fan-wank of a shared universe nod would help bring some curious audience members back into the fold. Accounting for these other franchises, Cena’s potential roles grow exponentially. He could be playing one of the Mayhem brothers from M.A.S.K., the titular Rom or the Action Man - hell, with how bizarre all this is anyway, John Cena could be playing Colonel Mustard. His first case should be an investigation into the deaths of AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura’s main event pushes.
However, John Cena could be portraying Dashiell R. Faireborn - better known as Flint, the G.I. Joe warrant officer. If that’s true, it would potentially set Hailee Steinfeld up as his daughter, Marissa Faireborn, who would be - depending on how old the character is that she’s playing - active during the current live-action Transformers films. It would also set Cena up for a major role in a potential G.I. Joe reboot; his nascent film career has flourished as his time as an active professional wrestler winds down. It would make sense for him to take a noticeable but familiar role that comes with the possibility of stabilized franchise work in the future.
Given the track record that the live-action portion of the franchise has, it’s unlikely that Cena’s character will be anything other than we’re expecting: a two-dimensional blue-collar hero scuttling around while giant, colorful garbage cans smash into each other for nearly three incomprehensible hours. Considering the character depth of Cade Yaeger and the likability of Sam Witwicky, Cena’s character will be the spiritual successor to Jan Minikaze, Daniel Witwicky, and Kicker Jones. No, he will not be playing Abdul Fakkadi, the Supreme Military Commander, President-for-Life, and King of Kings of the Socialist Democratic Federated Republic of Carbombya, but a boy can dream, can’t he?
