Paramounts’ TRANSFORMERS Writers Room; Bumblebee Spin-Off?

Paramount is assembling a writer’s room to cobble together more Transformers sequels and spin-offs, with the first one meant to be ready by the time Michael Bay finishes his Benghazi movie. Amid rumors of a Cybertron/origin movie, there’s now talk of a Bumblebee spin-off movie, with the info coming directly from the CEO of Hasbro.

TFW2005 points out that, at the Global Consumer Conference 2015, Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner said,

Many of you know Bumblebee; the yellow Camaro… formally known as a yellow VW Bug and he is a beloved character by kids all over the world. We could see stories told around Bumblebee and other characters. We are in a process of building the brand equity around the Comic Book Business, our TV Business, our Digital Gaming Business and adding to that our new movie business of Transformers.

That isn’t “a Bumblebee spin-off movie is coming,” but it does suggest that the general awareness for that character could help him to a starring position in one of the spin-off efforts.

Goldner continued,

Last year was Transformers 4. It was quite a good success for us last year. We’ve begun to work with writers and we are now developing the Transformers [Cinematic] Universe beyond the first four movies.

As of now, Akiva Goldsman is running the Transformers writer’s room, which features a whole bunch of people; Andrew Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari, who spent half a year doing the production rewriting on Marvel’s Ant-Man, “The Walking Dead” creator Robert Kirkman, “Iron Man 3″ writers Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, “Pacific Rim 2″ scribe Zak Penn, “Amazing Spider-Man 2″ writer Jeff Pinkner, Lindsey Beer (Dig), Christina Hodson (Shut In), Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down) and newbie Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Hibernation) will join the writing team for the new expanded universe.

Goldsman said the intention was to replicate the great writers rooms used in hatching TV shows. “There is such reciprocity between TV and movies now, that we’re borrowing this from TV,” Goldsman said. “I got a taste of this from JJ Abrams when I came in to write an episode of Fringe, and then Jeff Pinkner let me hang around for four years like the drunk uncle. The whole process of the story room was really delightful, and we are seeing it more in movies as this moves toward serialized storytelling. There are good rooms around town, including the Monsters Room at Universal, the Star Wars room, and of course, at Marvel. We’re trying to beg, borrow and steal from the best of them, and gathered a group of folks interested in developing and broadening this franchise. There is a central corridor of movies that has been proceeding quite well, but our challenge will be to answer, where do we go from here?”

When they start Monday, Goldsman and the writers will immerse themselves in everything that has been crafted by Hasbro to create what Goldsman said is a deep mythology. “We’ve got a work space that is beautifully production designed to be immersive with a strong sense of the franchise history,” he said. “We will look at the toys, the TV shows, the merchandise, everything that has been generated by Hasbro, from popular to forgotten iterations, and establish a mythological time line. It has been designed with a lot of visual help, toys, robots, sketches and writers and artists. After that super saturation, the writers will figure out not one, but numerous films that will extend the universe.”

Since 2014’s Transformers: Age Of Extinction turned in the franchise’s second-highest global gross with $1.1 billion, the first priority will be to figure out the next sequel and have something scripted and ready by the time Bay completes 13 Hours, the Benghazi siege drama that he’s directing for Paramount. All of the writers will come away with this exercise with a movie treatment to write, including Goldsman. Those writers will then have first crack at writing the scripts for treatment that meet the approval of Paramount, Bay, Spielberg, Hasbro and the producers.

“If one of the writers discovers an affinity for Beast Wars, they can drive forward on treatments that will have been fleshed out by the whole room,” Goldsman said.

Since he’s got an Oscar on his shelf and numerous projects that include the adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower that’s regained steam as Nikolaj Arcel is being signed to direct by Sony and MRC, Deadline asked Goldsman why he sparked to running the writers room, and scripting one of the Transformers sequels, spinoffs and prequels.

“It just felt like such fertile ground and a rich environment for storytelling, and there has already been thoughtful work done long before any of us came into the room,” Goldsman said. “We will be innovative miners, and we will have fun and get to do what we imagined this was all about when we were kids.”

TRANSFORMERS CINEMATIC UNIVERSE Confirmed Plus 2017 Target For T5

The last Transformers film, Age of Extinction, pulled in the money out of any 2014 film, so there was no shot of Paramount and Hasbro stopping the money train from chugging along. We just didn’t know when the next film was coming out, but now we do.

During Hasbro’s quarter one earning conference call, CEO Brian Goldner said the company is targeting 2017 for the release of Transformers 5 and he also confirmed plans for a Transformers cinematic universe. 

“Our plan with the studio and filmakers you may have heard some writers being hired and we have in fact brought in Akiva Goldsman to lead a group of writers to really create a strategic plan around Transformers. We think there are any number of stories to be told from the brand that has been around for 30 years with amazing canon and mythology. We would expect the sequel to the Transformers movie [TF4] to happen in 2017.”

Source: TFW2005

Paramount Pictures Want A TRANSFORMERS CINEMATIC UNIVERSE

Paramount Pictures wants more Transformers. Taking a page from Fox’s incubation of three Avatar sequels and what Disney is doing to revive Star Wars with a sequels and spinoffs, the studio is negotiating with Akiva Goldsman to work with franchise director Michael Bay, exec producer Steven Spielberg and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura to organize a “writer’s room” that will incubate ideas for a potential multi-part Transformers sequel, and come up with potential spinoff films based on the billion-dollar franchise culled from the Hasbro toy line.

After Transformers: Dark of the Moon, director Michael Bay famously planned to hand the franchise off to a new filmmaker who could semi-reboot the series. He subsequently changed his mind and came back to helm Age of Extinction himself, resulting in pretty much the same movie we’ve been watching for four films in a row now, only with more Mark Wahlberg and less Shia LaBeouf. Bay previously said he’d be handing Transformers 5 off to another filmmaker, and he subsequently opted to move forward with the Benghazi drama 13 Hours as his next film, but given his history you never really know.

It’s hardly surprising that Paramount would want to do this – for all their fluctuating quality levels, the Transformers franchise has been a robust box office performer for the studio, with even last year’s Age Of Extinction earning almost $1.1 billion around the world and breaking records in the lucrative Chinese market.

Source: Deadline

UNCHARTED: Mark Wahlberg Still Attached?

Transformers: Age of Extinction star Mark Wahlberg was attached to star in the big screen adaptation of the hit PlayStation video game series back when David O. Russell was directing, but we’ve now learned that he’s still very much the frontrunner to play Nathan Drake!

Uncharted has been in development for a number of years now, and the fact that the critically acclaimed video game series still hasn’t received the big screen treatment is baffling to say the least. Sony have certainly tried, and a number of writers and directors have been attached at one point or another. The latest is Horrible Bosses helmer Seth Gordon, while franchise fan and Zero Dark Thirty scribe Mark Boal is writing the latest draft of the script. Who will star in the movie?

ComicBookMovie.com has seen an email between Sony execs including Amy Pascal and Jonathin Kadin which reveal that back in June a meeting took place between Gordon and Mark Wahlberg (who was attached to the project a number of years ago) which apparently went very well. They talked in great detail about the version of the script which existed at that time, and the actor was agreeable to shooting Uncharted in early 2015. It’s then mentioned that they need a commitment from Mark “soon”, and while we can’t confirm he’s signed on – Chris Pratt was recently mentioned as being approached but declining – the studio are clearly high on the actor and it appears as if Wahlberg was keen to sign on. We’re assuming he’s playing the lead, but that’s not mentioned.

The Pain & Gain star was even shown a “mock trailer” which is said to have blown him away. Again, a lot might have changed in the past six months, but Wahlberg was extremely close to joining the cast at one point and Pratt could have been approached before these talks took place (remember, his possible involvement was only mentioned casually in a report from one of the trades). We also have a couple of very minor details about the production, including the fact that both Australia and Mexico have been looked at for shooting locations. Gordon meanwhile is said to be keen to cut back on green screen, something which should make fans of the action franchise happy.

TRANSFORMERS 5: Mark Wahlberg Commited To Transformers 5

With the release of Transformers: Age of Extinction this past summer, the giant fighting robot franchise did a bit of rebooting work. While it wasn’t overall job, audiences did say goodbye to the likes of Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson and others as new human characters played by Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, and Jack Reynor were introduced. Now that the franchise is moving forward with a fifth Transformers movie, many have been wondering if the new gang will be carrying over to the next sequel – and now we know the answer is yes for at least one of them.

Mark Wahlberg is currently out promoting his new film The Gambler, and while speaking to MTV he confirmed that he is locked up in a long term contract with Paramount Pictures that will see him starring in Transformer movies for many years to come. Asked if his time being around giant robots was coming to an end or just beginning, the actor responded, “Yeah, I committed to doing a couple more.”

But while Wahlberg may be signed on and ready to go for Transformers 5, the same can not be said about the man who has been helming the movies from the beginning. Back in August, shortly after it was announced that Transformers: Age of Extinction had eclipsed the $1 billion mark worldwide, Bay revealed that he is now looking to explore other avenues with his career and won’t be back for the next installment. That being said, the director also said very similar things after Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and he was convinced to come back after taking a break from action blockbusters with Pain & Gain. In the MTV interview, Wahlberg added that he couldn’t speak for Michael Bay’s presence on Transformers 5, but that “something tells [him] we’ll be on the set soon.”

It’s not exactly a huge surprise to hear that the folks at Paramount Pictures are eager to get yet another Transformers movie into development. While the movie didn’t perform tremendously here in the United States, making only $245 million and ranking as dead last in the live-action franchise, it was a gigantic hit overseas and eventually pulled in a global total of $1.087 billion – enough to rank it as the highest grossing movie of 2014 (Marvel Studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy sits in second place with a $772 million total). If Paramount wants to get another sequel in the works, however, they’re going to need to find somebody to steer the ship, and we have not heard a peep about potential candidates to replace Michael Bay.