Since Marvel (and later Disney) struck success with their cinematic universe, all the other studios have been trying to leap on that bandwagon, with Sony spinning a **Spider-Man **web, Universal planning a monster-verse and the Mouse House itself crafting a galaxy of Star Wars movies. The latest arrival to the multi-film party is Paramount, which has Akiva Goldsman joining the team to oversee more Transformers films.
According to Deadline, he’ll work with Transformers stalwarts Michael Bay, Steven Spielberg and Lorenzo di Bonaventura on setting up a writer’s room-style process that will hire scriptwriters to start developing potential new sequels and, because this is a thing that has to happen apparently these days, spin-offs. Bumblebee: Origins, anyone?
It’s hardly surprising that Paramount would want to do this – for all their fluctuating quality levels, the Transformers franchise has been a robust box-office performer for the studio, with even last year’s Age Of Extinction earning almost $1.1 billion around the world and breaking records in the lucrative Chinese market. But is the world ready for more films that have brought middling storylines from the man who last made A New York Winter’s Tale? Someone thinks so.
And the piece points to Bay appearing likely to return to the franchise once he’s completed work on true-life Benghazi drama 13 Hours, with Goldsman eschewing an active writing role in favour of working with others on development so that a script is up on its feet by the time Bay (assuming he’s not telling porkie pies again) is ready to return to Optimus & co.