In charge of the many-headed beast that is Paramount and Hasbro's Writers Room for the Transformers franchise is Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind). Since the studio seems happy with the work that's come out of Goldsman's think-tank - which could ultimately lead to 12 new movies but probably more like five ... or maybe only three - they've set him to supervise two more writers rooms for other major movie adaptations based on toy properties. If you're a fan of either G.I. Joe or Micronauts, this may come as either good or bad news.
As Deadline reports, this shift of responsibilities means that Goldsman will supervise but not write the next Transformers installment. Paramount is currently in negotiations with Iron Man writers Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, and Black Hawk Down's Ken Nolan to tackle that script together. The big takeaway here is that Goldsman will not be writing Transformers 5, and that decision was apparently solidified by the overseers of Paramount, Hasbro, Michael Bay, Steven Spielberg and producers Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Don Murphy.
So what's interesting here is that, although the very expensive Writers Room - which mimics similar groupthink tactics used in development of TV shows - managed to generate just a few ideas that were feature-worthy for Transformers, Paramount/Hasbro is trying the same plan of attack with their G.I. Joe and Micronauts franchises.
2009's G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and 2013's G.I. Joe: Retaliation took in a total box office haul around $675 million worldwide; certainly successful, but nowhere near the mega numbers that the Transformers franchise brings in. We haven't heard much on the planned G.I. Joe 3 yet, so perhaps now that Goldsman is overseeing that project's writers room, we'll get some news out of it sooner than later.
As for the less familiar property, Micronauts, their story takes place in the Microverse, in which Commander Arcturus Rann and his robot co-pilot Biotron return home and discover that the murderous dictator Baron Karza has slain the Royal Family. There's plenty of story to mine as adventures follow the continuing conflicts in the war between Rann and Karza's allies, so perhaps this writers room will bring a fresh adaptation to the big screen. Or perhaps they'll just ruin another fond childhood memory.
