Paramount ready to expand the “Transformers universe” with new movies

I’ll be honest: I kind of missed the Transformers craze, both when the cartoons and toys were popular way back when and later in 2007, when Michael Bay’s Transformers movie kicked off a major film franchise that’s lasted to this day. These movies — especially 2011’s Dark of the Moon and 2014’s Age of Extinction — made serious bank for Paramount, even if critics loathed them.

That said, by the time Transformers: The Last Knight came out in 2017, audience enthusiasm seemed to have dimmed a bit. The latest Transformers movie, 2018’s Bumblebee, is easily the best-reviewed film in the franchise, but also made the least amount of money. Maybe it’s time to power this franchise down?

Just kidding. The Hollywood Reporter has it that Paramount — in cooperation with Hasbro, which makes the Transformers toys — is developing two new Transformers movie scripts: one from Joby Harold, who wrote the rotten King Arthur: Legend of the Sword; and one from James Vanderbilt, who wrote David Fincher’s serial killer movie Zodiac. It’s good to have diversity.

Transformers tells the eternal tale of the battle between Transformers, good robots who can turn into cars, and Decepticons, bad robots who can turn into military-grade vehicles. We tiny humans — Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Mark Wahlberg, Hailee Steinfeld, etc — can only hold on for dear life. These new movies are expected to have new casts.

Based on these reports, I’m not sure whether Paramount is developing two new movies at once, or if they’re having two scripts written and choosing the one they like best. Either way, the Transformers are back after a shattering two-year absence. Are we excited, or just very very tired?

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