Forbes Magazine is bringing news on Paramount‘s Transformers’ story room, that at least 12 movies will be penned for the Transformers Cinematic Universe.
Monday, June 8th is the first official day of operations at Paramount’s Transformers’ story room, where almost a dozen writers will steep their collective heads in franchise lore before churning out the next decades worth of stories for movies and television. “We’ve got a work space that is beautifully production designed to be immersive with a strong sense of the franchise historyWe 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.” “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, [Steven] Spielberg, Hasbro and the producers.” If Goldsman is also making a treatment to add to the pile made by his 11 writers, that’s a total of 12 new Transformers movies that will be pitched to Paramount in the first round, and all of them will be capable of interconnecting with each other. There’s no telling how many of the pitches will be green-lit or how many stories will be kicked down to Transformers TV or video games, but the amount of output expected is impressive.
You can read the full report at Forbes.
Autovolt 127
and once again I'm finding myself agreeing with you.
JT-bob
Sounds like a really good idea that couldn't possibly go wrong and lead to burnout immediately.
Dinobot Snarl
The other concept is better, this one was used in a Michael Jackson movie
Ash from Carolina
I think there are big differences though between Marvel and Transformers as to why it's so much easier to have loads and loads of superhero movies vs having more Transformers related movies.
Each Marvel character has his or her own rouges gallery. So Spiderman might take on Doc Ock, while Fantastic Four has to take on Doctor Doom, and Captain America might be fighting the Red Skull during the Marvel version of World War II. With Transformers Hasbro never developed a rouges gallery for each bot it's always been a general Autobots vs Decepticons or Maximals vs Predicons. It's always been team shows and comic books not individuals except for more than a spotlight issue or episode.
Marvel characters have more diverse problems when it's not superhero time. Parker has to deal with high school, college, or post grad life depending on the series. Steve Rodgers has to deal with modern life. Thor has daddy issues. Bruce Banner has to deal with the fear that the Hulk is going to hurt someone. Transformers just don't have enough going on in the down time.
Marvel films can scale the villains power so that it's an interesting fight with one hero vs one villain or one villain strong enough to take on a whole team. Villains in the Transformers films not so much as the writers haven't been creative with how to stop the villain.
Also not sure how well a Transformers movie will do without Transformers in it so I don't really expect a Sector Seven or NEST movie to take off big.
Sledgehammer
Total agreement – would love to see a full-on 80s-style live-action movie, and for them to throw every batsh!t mental idea from G1 in for good measure. You want humans, Mr. Bay? Then a word with Marvel wouldn't be a bad idea (Blackrock, Circuit Breaker, [possibly Sam's cousin] Spike, the Roadjammers, etc. etc.)…
And directed by Christopher Nolan for the sheer insanity of it.
So much this.
Dear Marvel,
I know I've already potentially asked for a lot in terms of your human characters, but a certain freelance peacekeeping agent has to appear in at least one movie, yes? And besides, he'd be a lot more fun than movie Lockdown…
jame5y
a. Men.
zeroomegazx
Personally I think the Stratos Zero would make a better Hot Rod compared to G1. Just add spoiler and side pipes and wala!
http://www.carguytour.com/broadcasts/M3L.jpg
Autovolt 127
I would like that actually.
Yeah I don't think what it actually means.
This is what I think they mean.
It could work I guess.
Galvatross
As some members have pointed out nowhere is it said that there will be twelve movies produced. Some stories may end up going nowhere. Others may turn into a television miniseries, comic, or video game. And some will be turned into feature films.
As a Transformers fan I think this is great news. Let's say you don't like the past movies. Now we will be getting multiple writers, multiple directors, and multiple creative visions of Transformers. Chances are there will be a new film in this TFCU you will like even if you don't like the previous films.
Moreover, as a fan I don't go into a Transformers show or film expecting it to be my vision of Transformers. I go in to view someone else's version of Transformers, and if I like it I like it, but if I don't I don't.
Also, I have to give Bay and Goldsman and company credit for actually taking this continuity expansion seriously and acquiring a diverse team of writers. This started with a lot of the changes and additions made in Age of Extinction and has continued with all of the news in recent months regarding the TFCU.
WishfulThinking
Indeed. My hope as well.
Steevy Maximus
The title/topic thread is a bit misleading.
The 12 writers in the Transformers Story Room are ALL going to create film treatments (so, 12 film "ideas")
Then Paramount, the producers, Hasbro and Bay will sift through them and decide which to pursue and through what venue (direct to DVD or animated features were brought up).
In all reality, these 12 treatments will be whittled down or condensed to 3 or 4 that actually get made into films, at least at first.
Bass X0
Money matters more to Hollywood than the actual quality of movies. A bad movie that makes a lot of money is a success while a good movie that makes little money is a failure.
How many movies a year do we get from Marvel? Thats counting X-Men, Wolverine, Spiderman, Captain America, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Avengers, Thor, Ant-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy? Even though they are from different studios, they're still a Marvel license. I imagine the twelve movies will be something like that. Optimus Prime: The Movie, Bumblebee: The Movie, Autobots: The Movie, Sector Seven: The Movie, Tessa Yeager: The Movie etc…
RMStunticon
That's a lot of movies.
Enough to last us decades, the rate they're going now.
Ash from Carolina
I find that many to accept or reject to be overly ambitious. AoE did nothing at all to stop the domestic slide and with a stronger US dollar the overseas profits for Hollywood studios is really going to take a hit. Not to mention will Paramount set all their Transformers movies in China so they can get the co-production bonus? I'm not sure if slapping a Band-Aid on the franchise with some of these scripts will be enough to get rid of franchise fatigue.
As to moving something down to TV is there some show in the works we don't know about because I'm not sure how good the movie stuff would be for Rescue Robots or Robots in Disguise since those shows are doing their own things.
I also think the fly in this ointment is going to Paramount and the producers. Even if the writers come up with something so brilliant that it could unite a divided fandom either Paramount or the producers could shot it down for more bland, boring, generic, same things all over again. Right now Paramount and the producers haven't really shown that they can do anything except the same things they have been doing with Transformers, GI Joe, and Star Trek. We need something great before I can start getting up any faith they can do anything different.
Ephland
whoa, they're making 12 movies? Do you have a source for that?
Beemer
Everything you guys said, much better than I can!
MnemonicSyntax
I'm talking about financially. It strengthened it financially.
Thanks to the movies, we now have toy lines that weren't possible before, such as more dedicated attention to Masterpiece.
This was claimed by Hasui in the Masterpiece Guide. Also, in this very thread is links to show that AoE did really well in it's respective toy line.
The fact is, the movies made Transformers a household name and popular again. Though it wouldn't surprise me that you or others wouldn't care about that, considering you guys just want to live in your little worlds and sit around like you're some exclusive club that only certain members can join.
Which is ironic coming from you as is, since most of your post history is pretty much just bitching about the movies.