Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Yes, I'm not being facetious with that headline. The Transformers writers room has done its work with Akiva Goldsman apparently coming out on top to handle full scripting duties on Transformers 5.
Deadline reports that Goldsman "has the blueprint" now to write the sequel that will still star Mark Wahlberg yet take place mostly on Cybertron. All the writers, including Robert Kirkman, Jeff Pinkner, Steven DeKnight and Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Zak Penn and a few others notables, helped shape this story and also pitched producers (including Spielberg, Bay, di Bonaventura and Don Murphy) their own spinoffs that they could potentially be hired to make sometime in the next few years.
Why is this good news? Don't we hate Akiva Goldsman, he of Batman & Robin, Lost In Space and Winter's Tale fame? Transformers is a perfect home for Goldsman. He's away from any franchise I give a shit about and he'll get a massive payday to do so, so everybody is happy. Plus it confirms the rumors I've heard that he's taking a far, far, far backseat on anything happening with Dark Tower.
Michael Bay is expected to return to direct, which is no surprise there considering he reportedly makes tens of millions of dollars with every Transformers movies he makes. They're saying it's his last, but he's said that before and then makes an ungodly amount of money and changes his mind. The plan is to do an animated feature after Transformers 5 and a few other spin-offs. Deadline hears that Jeff Pinkner may write the Transformers film after the animated one and then one by Christina Hodson and Lindsey Beer.
It's clear that Paramount is putting a lot of focus on this as their primary franchise. It's not my most favorite big studio geek franchise in the world, but I can't deny there's a huge audience for it. What do you folks think?
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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