The writers' meeting involving last week involving Steven Spielberg, Michael Bay, Akiva Goldsman, Robert Kirkman, and other renowned scribes yielded mixed results.
While the Transformers Writers Room has already completed the blueprint for the fifth installment of the Transformers franchise and submitted to Spielberg, Paramount Pictures and other producers, giving the new movie a clear direction, Michael Bay is still unsure if he will return to the director's seat, as confirmed by Deadline.
Bay's non-commitment to the new movie was confirmed on his official post on Twitter, "No, it's not official. I have not committed to any idea as of yet. Just met with Steven and we are discussing."
According to Deadline Hollywood, the producers of the movie have also agreed that the new film will focus on Cybertron. The animated feature will be written by "Ant-Man" writers Gabriel Ferrari and Andrew Barrer although no director has yet been attached. The fifth live-action film now has a "blueprint" for its story and characters, which involve Mark Wahlberg returning as the lead, although no script and director has been attached either.
Other scribes included in the Transformers Writers Room are Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down), Andrew Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari (Ant-Man), Robert Kirkman (Walking Dead), Art Marcum & Matt Holloway (Iron Man), Zak Penn (X-Men: The Last Stand, Pacific Rim 2), and Jeff Pinkner (Amazing Spider-Man 2, Lost), and Steven DeKnight (Spartacus, Daredevil) and Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Christina Hodson and Lindsey Beer who is described as a "science major at Stanford" who has "written original specs in the sci-fi and fantasy genre."
A separate report by Cinema Blend said Transformers 5 will have a new direction and formula as the producers want to introduce sweeping changes into the franchise. Indeed, the Transformers: Age of Extinction was supposed to be the start of a new trilogy minus Shia LeBeouf and Megan Fox and has introduced Wahlberg as the new hero.
Bay recently told USA Today that he has different plans that don't include Transformers movies, stating, "There's kind of a new chapter, a new direction in movies I want to make. I have a lot of stories to tell. And it's about flexing new muscles."
Paramount has very good reasons to keep Bay on the director's seat. All the four previous Transformers movie directed by Bay earned more than $3.7 billion worldwide and he is being credited as the "driving creative force" of the franchise. This, despite the fact that the fourth sequel, drew heavy flak from critics.
Hopefully, Bay, Spielberg and Paramount could reach an agreement before the movie officially starts filming in June next year.
According to Coming Soon, the Transformers Writers Room also suggested an animated spinoff for the franchise. As reported, the animated feature will focus on Cybetron with Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari tasked to develop the script.
Accordingly, at least nine story pitches were submitted to Paramount for evaluation. At least five were considered potential for movies and the Writers Pool hope they can develop full-pledge script within the next three years.
The first script will be developed by Goldsman, then the animated movie script, then a script by Jeff Pinkner, followed by Lindsey Beer's.
