Rumor: David Warner wanted to voice Shockwave in Transformers 3

Now that filming on Michael Bay’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon has been completed (here), and we finally got our first look at the film (here), it’s about time Bay started looking at voice actor for the new Transformers. There’s no word on what new robots the film will feature, but Bay has confirmed (here) that fan-favorite Shockwave would finally appear in the film as the primary villain. We’ve already got a vague look at the design of the character (here), and now rumor is going around that David Warner (Tron, Titanic, The Omen) is considered for the role.

On his website, Corey Burton (the original voice of Shockwave) revealed that he won’t be voicing the character, but mentions that Warner could be up for the job. “It is rumored that David Warner himself has been under consideration for the next live-action/CGI movie production, as Shockwave – which I feel is entirely appropriate, given Mr. Bay’s propensity for casting Screen Personalities over multi-voiced off-camera “cartoon” character voice actors – and Mr. Warner’s outstanding history of consistently vivid and “savory” character performances (a much under-appreciated and impressively versatile master craftsman in the fine art of Acting, across the entire spectrum of audio/visual performance media),” he said. Fans will likely be disappointed, after all, with Peter Cullen voicing Optimus Prime and Peter Welker voicing Soundwave, many would want the original voice for Shockwave’s debut. Although, Welker didn’t get to voice the character that he’s famous for, Megatron.

While Welker did more or less cameo in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Burton was asked to voice a couple characters in Transformers, but declined. “I was given the opportunity to audition for Jazz (a totally incomprehensible request for me to even attempt), and “Brawl” (you might recall I was Brawn in the early series), but it was just a one line “cameo” bit that didn’t seem worth jumping through all the audition hoops, just for a 2-second bit of scale rate “incidental” VO work,” he said. It’s unknown how truthful Burton’s claim about Warner being considered, but it would seem like a good choice. Warner has always played a villain role in films like Tron, Titanic, and even in Batman: The Animated Series as Ras al Ghul. Although, with post-production on the film underway, we should get news on the voice actors in the coming months.

Matt Keith

I’m just your everday movie nerd.

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