In The Heights' Anthony Ramos reaches the "fight a Transformers" stage of his career

Paramount has found the next hapless hero doomed to try to follow in the shoes of the immortal Cade Yeager, as Deadline reports that Anthony Ramos has signed on to star in one of the studio’s upcoming Transformers films. Probably still best known for his co-starring role in the original Broadway cast of Hamilton, Ramos’ most recent major role was in the still-delayed In The Heights. Now, he will take on his true destiny: Staring at a ping pong ball and pretending that it’s a giant robot who is also a dinosaur that is also somehow a car.

For the sake of clarity—because there are currently two different Transformers movies in development now, with no real connection between them—Ramos has signed on for the cast of the Transformers being directed by Steven Caple Jr., not Angel Manuel Soto. It’s a big step up in profile for Ramos, even if “starring in a Transformers movie” tends to be more like “appearing in a Disney live-action reboot” than, say, “landing a Marvel gig” when it comes to new tiers of fame. (With apologies to John Turturro, everyone knows the audiences are really showing up for Bumblebee and Prowl.)

Paramount is really pushing to get the Transformers machine back off the ground after a few relatively fallow years, on the grounds that it’s the closest thing the studio has to a big blockbuster franchise; it’s not for nothing that 2018's Bumblebee brought in nearly half-a-billion at the box office. Hence the parallel development and a certain cutting of ties with the Michael Bay incarnation of the franchise, all aimed to get people back into the concept of robots that are also motorcycles being driven by the cast of Hamilton, a surefire entertainment concept if ever there was one.