Hope you’re not tired ofTransformersyet! Because we’re getting at least four moresequelsin the next ten years. And this doesn’t even include the spinoffs and animated feature films. It’s not clear ifMichael Bayis going to stick around for all of them, butHasbrohas confirmed today thatTransformers 6,Transformers 7andTransformers 8are all happening, carrying the franchise well into the next decade.
We already knew thatParamount Pictureshad big plans for itsTransformersfranchise. It was announced in September thatTransformers 5is shooting in June 2016, with a script from Academy Award nominated writerAkiva Goldsman. It’s suspected thatMichael Baywill return to direct, but that hasn’t been confirmed by the director at this time. The sequel will be followed by an animated spinoff that revolves around therobots' home world ofCybertron, tentatively titled Transformers One.Ant-Manwriters Andrew Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari will be in charge of penning this origin story.
Hasbro’s Executive Vice President and Chief Content Officer, Stephen J. Davis held a Q&A during the MIP Junior Conference today. And he further expanded upon what theTransformerswriter’s room has been up to over the course of the past three months. It seems the output was more productive than originally reported, and this brain trust has enough ideas to fuel the next ten years inTransformersmovies. This is what he had to say.
You’re going to see a newTransformers moviecoming from Hasbro and Paramount and Michael Bay and our other partners. In fact, we just finished – as some of you may have read – an incredible experience. We decided we wanted to plot out the next 10 years of the Transformers franchise, so we got together in a 3 month period of time…nine of some of the most creative writers I have ever worked with – shepherded by Akiva Goldsman, who many of you may know won an Academy Award for A Beautiful Mind, and written a bunch of great movies. And they plotted out the next ten years of Transformers. Similarly we are doing the same in television and digital. So stay tuned Transformers 5 is on its way. …And 6 and 7 and 8.
The entire writers room consisted ofAkiva Goldsman,Steven S. DeKnight(Daredevil),Robert Kirkman(The Walking Dead),Art Marcum&Matt Holloway(Iron Man),Zak Penn(Pacific Rim 2),Jeff Pinkner(The Amazing Spider-Man 2),Andrew BarrerandGabriel Ferrari(Ant-Man),Christina Hodson,Lindsey Beers,Ken NolanandGeneva Robertson-Dorsett. The idea was for this group to build a working blueprint for an expanded universe that will include sequels and spinoffs. And it sounds like it’s really paid off.
The group worked as one cohesive team, sometimes breaking off into pairs as they worked through new ideas and collaborated to find worthwhile material revolving around the Hasbro toy line and animated cartoon that originated in the 80s. The team was tasked with proposing possible spinoffs, sequels and prequels. Once an idea was in place, they moved forward to generate a working treatment.Akiva Goldsmanorchestrated the controlled environment, with everyone getting to pitch their ideas to franchise producerSteven Spielberg. Also in the room for these pitches were directorMichael Bay, executives from Paramount, Hasbro’sBrian Goldnerand producersLorenzo di Bonaventuraand Mark Vahradian and Don Murphy.
At this time, Paramount has only confirmed Transformers 5 and the animated prequel Transformers One. But the writers' room is said to still be together as a group. And they will continue to generate ideas until the year 2025. On the TV side of things, it was announced thatTransformers: Robots in Disguisewill be a direct continuation ofTransformers: Prime.TFW2005has video of the conference you can watch here.
