Tracking · Updated 2026-08-14
The new
post-credits
chapter
The 40th Anniversary re-release ends with an all-new post-credits chapter made specifically for the theatrical event. It premiered at San Diego Comic-Con on 24 July 2026. Beyond that, almost everything you have read about it is guesswork, so this page keeps the confirmed and the unconfirmed strictly apart.
What we know about the post-credits scene
Confirmed: it exists, it is brand new, it was made for this theatrical run, it premiered at Comic-Con on 24 July, it plays after the credits, and Hasbro’s tagline for it is “Every Epic Saga Has a Secret. As This Journey Ends, a New One Begins.”
Not confirmed by anyone: what happens in it, who animated it, who wrote or directed it, how long it runs, or whether Optimus Prime appears. That last one has been repeated widely. It traces back to a single outlet’s speculation.
Verified
What Hasbro has actually said
| Confirmed | Detail |
|---|---|
| It exists, and it is genuinely new | An all-new post-credits cinematic chapter, created specifically for this theatrical event. It is not archive material, not a deleted scene, and not part of the 1986 film. |
| It premiered at San Diego Comic-Con | First shown on 24 July 2026, the same day Hasbro and Fathom announced the theatrical run. |
| It plays after the credits | Which is the entire point. Do not walk out. The film itself runs 84 minutes and the credits are not long. |
| The official tagline | "Every Epic Saga Has a Secret. As This Journey Ends, a New One Begins." That is Hasbro's wording, verbatim, from the announcement. |
| It is exclusive to the theatrical event | Nothing announced so far suggests it appears anywhere else. Notably, it is NOT listed among the extras on the 40th Anniversary disc. |
Not verified
What nobody has confirmed
We are listing these explicitly because the search results for this scene are, right now, largely one article. A single exclusive was syndicated across several large sites, and its speculative lines have since been restated as though they were reporting.
| Open question | Where it stands |
|---|---|
| What actually happens in it | Unknown. Neither Hasbro nor Fathom has described a single frame of it beyond the tagline. |
| Who made it | No animation studio, director, writer or voice cast has been credited anywhere. If you read a claim about who produced it, ask where that came from. |
| Whether Optimus Prime is in it | Speculation. It traces back to a single Men's Journal piece and was then restated by other outlets. Reasonable guess given the "Apology Tour" framing. Still a guess. |
| How long it runs | Not stated. |
| Whether it sets up something else | The tagline implies it, which is what taglines are for. No project has been announced off the back of it. |
Our position
We are not going to invent a synopsis to rank for this, and we are not going to launder con-floor hearsay into a report. This page gets rewritten the day the chapter screens publicly, on 17 September 2026, with what is actually on screen.
The question nobody else is answering
Is the new scene on the disc?
This is the most-asked question in the Blu-ray.com and Reddit threads about the anniversary, and there is no page anywhere that addresses it directly. So, plainly:
Not according to anything announced. The 40th Anniversary Edition, streeting 13 October 2026 from Shout! Factory, is a DVD, and its listed extras are the legacy package that has travelled with this film for years: the Nelson Shin, Flint Dille and Susan Blu commentary, the ’Til All Are One documentary, the archival Death of Optimus Prime, Cast and Characters and Transformers Q&A featurettes, animated storyboards, trailers and TV spots. The new chapter is not on that list.
Hasbro has consistently described the chapter as created for the theatrical event. Read literally, the cinema is the only announced way to see it. That could change, and plenty of Fathom exclusives have later turned up on a release, but nothing has been announced and we will not pretend otherwise.
Full disc breakdown, including the extras list that two major fan outlets got wrong, is on the 40th Anniversary disc page.
Context
Why a post-credits scene, and why now
The framing tells you a lot. Hasbro is calling the whole campaign “The Apology Tour”, and the full event title is “The Transformers: The Movie: The Apology Tour 40th Anniversary Screenings”. Fathom’s copy invites you “back to the scene of the crime” and offers “one very overdue ‘our bad’”.
That is a company selling grief it deliberately caused. In 1986 Hasbro killed Optimus Prime to clear the 1984 and 1985 toy lines for the 1986 range, was surprised by the volume of letters from children, and brought him back on television within six months. Forty years later it is putting the film back in cinemas and appending a brand-new scene to it.
Which is why the speculation about Optimus is reasonable even though it is unsourced. A forty-years-late apology tour that ends on a secret is not subtle about what the secret is likely to concern. But reasonable and confirmed are different things, and this page only deals in the second.
Questions
Everything people ask
The original 1986 film has no post-credits scene. The 40th Anniversary theatrical re-release, playing from 17 September 2026, adds an all-new post-credits chapter created specifically for the event. It plays after the credits roll.
Nobody outside Hasbro, Fathom and the audience at San Diego Comic-Con on 24 July 2026 knows. Hasbro has released a tagline, "Every Epic Saga Has a Secret. As This Journey Ends, a New One Begins.", and nothing else. Any article telling you what is in it is speculating. We will update this page the day it screens publicly.
No creative credits have been released. No animation studio, director, writer or voice cast has been named by Hasbro, by Fathom, or in any trade report we can find.
Not as far as anything announced. The 40th Anniversary Edition DVD, streeting 13 October 2026 from Shout! Factory, lists the legacy extras package (the Nelson Shin commentary, the Til All Are One documentary, archival featurettes, storyboards and trailers) and the new chapter is not among them. Hasbro has described it as created for the theatrical event. If you want to see it, the cinema is currently the only announced way.
Yes. That is the whole reason the chapter exists and it is the single most useful thing to know before you go.
Yes, it premiered at San Diego Comic-Con on 24 July 2026. Attendees have discussed it, but Hasbro has not released it or described it publicly, and we are not going to publish unverified con-floor accounts as fact.
Keep reading
Related
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Physical mediaThe 40th Anniversary disc
Date, price, specs, and the extras two outlets got wrong.
ReferenceWho dies in the movie
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ReferenceThe ending, explained
The Matrix, Rodimus Prime and Unicron’s head.
The hubThe Transformers: The Movie (1986)
The complete record of the film.