Paramount and Hasbro have expressed plans to reboot the current continuity of the Transformers movie series.
As reported by Transformers World, Hasbro has announced plans to start fresh after the release of the Bumblebee solo movie (out on December 21, 2018). Coinciding with this news, Paramount has pulled Transformers 6 from its release calendar.
This seems to indicate that Paramount’s previous plans for a cinematic universe launched off of the existing Transformers series have fallen through. This concept was first introduced in 2015, with the hiring of Akiva Goldsman to oversee a Transformers brain trust including Steven DeKnight, Robert Kirkman, Zak Penn, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, Jeff Pinkner, Andrew Barrer, Gabriel Ferrari, Christina Hodson, Lindsey Beer, Ken Nolan, and Geneva Robertson-Dworet.
Together, this group pitched at least a dozen projects to Paramount to comprise the “Transformers Cinematic Universe,” including an animated origin story for Cybertron titled Transformers One. As of now though, the only project outside of Michael Bay’s core series has been Bumblebee, a prequel set in the 1980s, directed by Travis Knight.
Paramount hasn’t indicated if any of this development work will survive the transition, but it sounds like they’re leaning towards starting fresh. Additionally, a new agreement with Hasbro will give the toy company more creative control over this new universe, and Hasbro itself is committing $100-$125 million for developing new TV and film projects based on their IP’s.
With Transformers 6 gone, four Hasbro projects remain on the Paramount docket: A new G.I. Joe film in 2020, a Micronauts movie in 2020, a Dungeons & Dragons movie in 2021, and an untitled “event film” in 2021.
