It's easy to knock Paramount and the idea of a "Writer's Room" for their brainless Transformers movies, but think about it for a second. They've assembled a ton of creative talent from all different genres, to come up with ideas for an expanded Transformers universe. They're taking this expansion seriously, which is more than can be said for some other studios....lookin' at you Sony and 20th Century Fox, that just jump in feet first. And now all of the plotting has begun to bear fruit.
According to Deadline, two projects are moving forward springing from the brain trust, and the first is Transformers 5 which Michael Bay will direct from an Akiva Goldsman script. Remember when Bay was going to quit after the third one? Then after 'Age of Extinction'? Well, not so much, and they've already got enough ideas for a sixth movie whether Bay decides to direct that one or not. Both will feature Mark Wahlberg, which we already knew since the last film was meant to be the start of a new trilogy.
The next film is the animated Transformers origin story set on Cybertron that was rumored a couple of months ago. It's an idea come up with by co-writers Andrew Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari, both contributors to Marvel's Ant-Man. The rest of the Paramount writing team consists of Christina Hodson, Lindsey Beer, The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, Iron Man writers Art Marcum & Matt Holloway, X-Men: The Last Stand's Zak Penn, Jeff Pinkner, and Daredevil showrunner Steven S. DeKnight. Apparently they realized the Transformers universe isn't as vast as they thought, but there are still about five movies Steven Spielberg feels are worth being turned into features at some point.
2017 is the target year for Bay's next Transformers movie according to the most recent rumors, but with Bay on board now expect a hard date to be announced soon.
