Viacom; the parent company of Paramount Pictures is in talks with CBS for a potential merger (as ViacomCBS). At the time of writing of this post, the question is ‘when?’ and not ‘if?’, since internal townhall sessions are taking place at Viacom/Paramount in preparation for the merger.
There are some exciting news and rumors coming out of Paramount side, with regards to Transformers and G.I. Joe franchises. TFW2005 Network decided to dig in to learn more.
- Extension of Jim Gianopulos and Elizabeth Raposo.
- Hasbro-Paramount agreement.
- Potential live action TV series.
- CBS Showtime and Paramount movies.
You can read our report on the above mentioned subjects, after the jump.
Extension of Jim Gianopulos and Elizabeth Raposo.
Speaking to the gathered investors and press, Viacom CEO Bob Bakish spoke highly of Paramount Pictures. For the first time in many years Paramount is on the brink of achieving full year (4 quarter) profit. This is all thanks to Paramount CEO Jim Gianopulos. As a result, Viacom has recently decided to extend Jim Gianopulos’ stay as they enter a brand new era with CBS.
Mr. Gianopulos took over Paramount after a disastrous year where Transformers: The Last Knight nearly brought about the end of Paramount. He was tasked to immediately find substitute investors instead of HuaHua Media who were supposed to fund the Transformers Cinematic Universe and 50% of all Paramount Pictures movies for [then] next 4 years. He did exactly that… and more.
Jim Gianopulos course-corrected Transformers: Bumblebee; resulting in a worldwide approval from critics. He penned a brand new deal with Hasbro which is [currently] set to expire at the end of 2022.
Meanwhile Elizabeth Raposo is also extended. Raposo is the Paramount Pictures head of production on Transformers Live Action Movies. This is a great news for Transformers fans since the presence of the movies is extended instead of being omitted with the merger.
Hasbro-Paramount Agreement.
At the end of 2017, Paramount reached Hasbro for an agreement to a brand new 5-year deal. The agreement gave Hasbro more say in movies developed by Paramount which are based on Hasbro properties.
Hasbro’s Allspark Pictures and Allspark Animation will play an active role alongside Paramount in content development and production under this relationship and Hasbro will play a more significant role in financing the films as well.
We currently do not have any concrete information regarding how the merger will affect this agreement. However, Paramount is continuing to develop two G.I. Joe live action movies, one Micronauts live action movie, one Dungeons and Dragons live action movie and one Bayblade live action movie over the next 3 years. Therefore, the current agreement may not deal with a significant impact due to the merger.
Potential live action TV series.
With it, we are coming in for a potential rumor coming from Paramount’s side. With a TV giant such as CBS at the helm, rumor has it that a couple of TV Series based on Transformers and G.I. Joe properties are in the cards. But of course, this is just a rumor only and therefore we must take it with a grain of salt. Hasbro must agree (and make a new deal) in order for this to come to fruition.
CBS Showtime and Paramount Movies
Moving away from the rumor, it was confirmed that CBS’ premium channel, Showtime, will have access to movies from Paramount Pictures’ deep library, which includes Transformers and G.I. Joe.
The movies will also be available on demand, and therefore giving another easy access to the fans.
Rodimal Rodimus
Is that true?
Michael Payton
It might even conflict with the Paramount deal for the Bee sequel and the Beast Wars movies that were "leaked" a few weeks back. (Sidebar: studios "leak" projects to the press to generate media and fan interest to show potential investors that people are excited about a project. That's why the Bee2/BW movie "news" was given to Deadline Hollywood to put out a few weeks ago.) ViacomCBS is struggling at the moment and they might have simply passed on any future TF movies. They still have a contract until 2021 or 2022 *(don't remember the exact date right off the top of my head)* for the movies, but nothing for live action television, which was considered too expensive to bother with. eOne might not be able to make a TF live action TV series before then. That was something Hasbro had said they wanted.
This is not the first time a live action TF series was shopped around tho. Larry DiTillio proposed one that seemed loosely based on the Master Force Pretenders during his time on Beast Wars. Human modes would have kept the cost down, but it was still too much $$ to make back then.
Music
Regardless if it's true or not, you should make an entirely new thread (and mirror the information) since it has nothing to do with the merger.
Digger
I can feel they wanna do something. If you’ve got the keys to making big transformers movies they can’t just forget about that. Especially with the hot new draw of a reboot. I don’t know if it will be a show. But they’re gonna start something this decade. I know it.
Rodimal Rodimus
This may be off-topic and even necro-posting, but honestly, I'm kinda wondering and even sceptical on how a "live-action" Transformers TV series would work exactly.
Live-Action Transformers Show Reportedly In The Works, Set After Bumblebee
Autobot Burnout
See, I don't really believe that, since after DOTM, the time between films increased by 33% from two years to three even though really, the actual production process didn't change. If there had been that kind of pressure, Paramount wouldn't have waited to make that stupid announcement about 'one film a year for three years in the TFCU' after AoE, they would have been right on top of that shit and cranked out whatever a fifth film would have been in much less time.
madman1366
I think one thing that could be taken away from this is the fact that the troubles Paramount was having HAD to be putting more pressure on Bay to keep cranking out more movies which in turn began taking a heavy toll on the end results. The Transformers franchise was their life support and when that began to fail, the studio nearly died.
I do believe the franchise can still be a part of their solution to get better. Best to get things back to basics and work from there.
RodimusRex
G.I.Joe can work. Just put them in Marvel movie style gear and give them literal versions of all the toy gimmicks.
Incidentally, yes, Tom Scioli’s TF vs. Joe was absolutely mental, silly, campy, weird, and unrealistic but it’s probably the single most toy gimmick focused media take on a Hasbro property ever and one of the few TF comics where the importance of transforming is never lost.
And it gives a workable template for a G.I.Joe that is a secret society predating the foundation of the United States and locked in battle with rival secret societies. A world where Vikings have Adventure Team necklaces
The United States is a pawn or proxy for G.I.Joe’s greater agenda and that includes Lovecraftian Cobra-La and aliens inside the earth. And The Headman who is dealing drugs to literally raise an undead army. And they use lasers and giant backpacks and gyrocopters.
No real cars. Cobra POGOs and ATVs that double as backpacks. And you kind of have to actively dump on reality. Your characters need to be convinced that a helicopter strapped to your back, powered by a literal rip cord, is better than any real world tech coming out of Lockheed-Martin.
TheIncredibleHulk
Regardless of what it means for Transformers, a Viacom / CBS merger is NOT a good thing.
Everybody's seen those messages at the bottom of their TV screens from time to time, warning viewers that "You could loose so and so channels if you don't call your cable company!". Its a common scare tactic of Viacom's around contract time to put pressure on cable companies to cave to Viacom's demands for more money. But guess who ultimately pays that extra money to Viacom. It ain't the cable company!
Now, imagine this merger goes through, it's contract time again, and guess what… now you could potentially lose the ability to watch your CBS Affiliate's programming or again, pay more money to watch it.
UltraPrimal
I've said it before the last time the idea of a live action Transformers series came up and I still believe it: The ONLY way to do a live action Transformers TV series is to do the Transformers as either Pretenders or holo-matter avatars for 95% of the episode, and only the robot for the other 5% of the episode. Basically, think Power Rangers, but if the Zords were the robot modes. Because people and cars are easy, fast, and cheap to shoot compared to creating, animating, rendering, and compositing an entirely CGI robot. Some kind of mix of Pretenders and Headmasters/Powermasters would probably be best because that way you can have them in human form with their alt mode. Then, they can basically morph into their armored human Pretender form like Power Rangers changing from the civilian outfits to their ranger outfits. Which could all be done practical. And they'd only combine with their vehicle modes into their full robot mode when absolutely necessary. Thus saving a lot of money.
If they keep the focus on the "robot in disguise" aspect, emphasis on disguise, I can see it working. Set it as though this is the first time Transformers have arrived on Earth. Autobots are tracking the Decepticons. Maybe pull some inspiration from the -Ation series of IDW. Decepticons are trying to infiltrate world governments, replace their leaders with facsimiles, and cause a world war to wipe out all human life so that they can just roll in and harvest the planet's resources without any resistance. But obviously, both the Decepticons and Autobots are hiding and trying to remain low key. Otherwise if a Decepticon pops up, the Autobots are going to be all over them, and vice versa.
The best thing is that, if they wanted to, they could change the cast whenever they choose. Is Optimus Prime's actor getting too uppity and demanding more money? Or maybe he posted something on Twitter that people didn't like. Simply have Optimus scan a new truck mode and recompile his human form like The Doctor when he regenerates and bam! New actor, same character. Want to add diversity to the cast? OK, now Bumblebee is played by a gay Latina girl. Need to make a big surprise reveal at the end of the season? OK, this guy who you thought was an Autobot secret agent, turns out he's a Double Pretender and he's actually Sideways! And you dumb Autobots let him into and gave away the location of your hidden base, which now the Decepticons are about to bomb to kingdom come!
GI Joe on the other hand? Ha! Forget it! You're going to make a live action version of a kids show where American soldiers and foreign terrorists shot at each other with real guns? Today? Yeah, right! Sounds like PR suicide for Hasbro.
Rodimal Rodimus
Kicker the second coming? XD
I think you just made a new meme
WishfulThinking
Robots in Disguise 2015 also worked that angle pretty hard, even trying to come up with excuses to have a giant robot dinosaur in public when they had to.
WishfulThinking
I know it's an outlier but that's why Columbo was so awesome. The villains are actually fairly smart and the beginning of the show is how they pull off the murder/heist/whatever. When Columbo shows up, it then becomes a game of chess as he charmingly begins disassembling their scheme. You know the villain will lose or else the show wouldn't continue…but it's written in a way that there's always the possibility that Columbo might overlook something.
I also liked the Rockford Files, where the villains sometimes win to a degree and Rockford isn't a superhuman (he'll sometimes run away from a fight).
Autobot Burnout
To be fair, ignoring the kids for a second, how Armada handled other humans was pretty good. My personal favorite moment is the episode where the kids try to hide the space mini cons in plain sight and this one human woman tells Sky Blast (who is wearing a huge-ass trenchcoat and fedora to hide his robotic profile) he has a HUGE hand (nevermind the fact he only has one hand, the other is the combination port/central rocket booster) and then when he beeps in response, she laughs and says his voice is funny.
Hooper_X
Berser Car
For a live action series I would like them to adapt Masterforce. It has a lot of central characters with human form: Godmasters, Headmasters Jr, Pretenders… You can keep the characters on screen the entire episode without using your cgi budget.
ron8675309
And yet the Unicron Trilogy happened.
mx-01 archon
Oh. Well then as I said, IDW started off… interestingly, I guess. I don't think Verity and crew stood out enough to really justify their continued involvement in the story, but IDW at least tried to be different. Again though, the human angle eventually devolved into macho militarism as always, and left the POV characters in the dust.
KnightHawkke
Wait a minute.. Wait..
Transformers possibly in the hands of Secret Hideout? Any chance of Transformers in the hands of Secret Hideout?
SG Roadbuster
I was mostly referring to how Idw used humans. Especially during Furman's run.
Verity, Hunter, and Jimmy were just important enough to get the plot moving. But they weren't Annoying like Daniel, or the second coming of Christ like Kicker or Sari