Long before its release, Transformers: The Last Knight was intended as a new stage in the franchise, with an entire universe of interlinking spin-offs planned for the next few years – one of them being a movie based on the Autobot, Bumblebee, due out in 2018.
To this end, a writers room was established to help come up with this complex web of transforming robot movies, and Paramount chose Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind, I Am Legend) to head it up. When asked by Slash Film whether he was still leading the group, Goldsman simply replied that he wasn’t.
Elsewhere, producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura adds that the Transformers writers room was “set up to explore the mythology more” in The Last Knight – which basically meant that it came up with the Arthurian stuff and the odd scenes set in World War II.
This seems like a change in stance from a few months ago, when Michael Bay suggested that Goldsman and his team had “14 stories written” which could, in theory, be spun out in to more movies or other bits of entertainment. And while those stories could still be used in the future, De Bonaventura’s suggestion that the writing team was only set up to throw ideas around for The Last Knight seems rather curious when you think of the familiar names in the room: Steven DeKnight, Zak Penn, Jeff Pinkner and Christina Hodson to name a few.
Could it be that the team was disbanded after the box office performance of The Last Knight? With regular director Michael Bay leaving, it could be that the producers behind the series are having a bit of a rethink when it comes to their Transformers universe plans. Now, a lot could hinge on the reaction to next year’s Bumblebee spin-off, directed by Travis Knight.
More on this as it develops.