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Beast Wars Spinoff Comes to Revive the Transformers Franchise

As much as critics like to make fun of him, Michael Bay is one of the few directors in Hollywood able to deliver guaranteed smashing box office hits. Or he used to be, until Transformers: The Last Knight.
Transformers franchise is not dead yet, report says 6 photos
Photo: Paramount Pictures
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Bay remains consistent with his iconic style of moviemaking, delivering astounding cinematography but B-grade storytelling, a recipe that worked like magic for the first four Transformers movies he directed. The 2017 The Last Knight was a hit and miss (for him): though not completely a commercial failure, it wasn’t able to rake in billions like the other 4 movies.

Coincidentally, The Last Knight was also Bay’s last time at the helm of a Transformers movie, which left Paramount Pictures with a big problem on its hands: a hot franchise that could do with more exploiting, and the departure of the director that had turned it into a phenomenon.

Bumblebee came out one year later and was somehow meant to “reboot” the franchise once more, completely ignoring the events in The Last Knight. It should have been followed by a seventh film the next year, but it got pulled from the studio’s release schedule without a word.

All this to say that, if you thought this was the end of Transformers, you were wrong. Variety reports that the franchise is still considered a hot priority over at Paramount Pictures, so much so that two separate scrips are underway.

This doesn’t mean that two movies will be released, but it does point out to the kind of interest in bringing the world’s favorite transforming robots (and cool cars) back on the big screen. According to the trade publication, the scripts, handled by James Vanderbilt and Joby Harold, “present an opportunity build out multiple storylines within the franchise.” Read: a reboot that paves the way for a multi-layered universe in the manner of Disney’s Star Wars.

No directors are attached as of the time of writing, but Variety points out that fans should probably expect new casts of actors and probably new cars, as well. Vanderbilt’s previous credits include Netflix’s Murder Mystery and a producing credit on Ready or Not, while Harold produced John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and penned Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead.

Deadline has a bit more info on the projects, saying that one of the scripts is based on Beast Wars, the series and line of toys that transformed into animals and insects, such as Rhinox, Optimus Primal, Waspinator and Cheetor. Vanderbilt is supposedly working on this one and has been attached since last spring.
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About the author: Elena Gorgan
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Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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