It seems Paramount is in dire need of a stable, money making franchise that could also work as an expanded cinematic universe, like that of Marvel's, DC's or the Star Wars Saga's. The studio is now thinking that their most safe bet would be the Transformers franchise, which has already four movies, and the upcoming fifth will soon be in the making after director Michael Bay is finished with his current project, 13 Hours. Or at least that's the plan of the studio, that wants the fifth instalment to be released as late as 2017.
But if the recent news, that Mr. Bay got hired to direct an upcoming sci-fi movie, Time Salvager, ruins Paramount's plans about the fifth movie release date, they still should not worry about the state of the franchise.
We already covered that a possible prequel is a direction that Paramount would gladly explore, but as much as 11 more movies could be made for the Transformers franchise in the near future.
After Paramount hired Akiva Goldsman, to put together a writers room who could come up with ideas for the franchise, the 12 members of this group really started working to create an expanded cinematic universe. As Forbes found out, the current screenwriters include the following names: Zak Penn (The Incredible Hulk), Jeff Pinker (Lost), Art Marcum and Matt Holloway (Iron Man), The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari (Ant-Man), Christina Hodson (Shut In), Lindsey Beer, Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down) and Geneva Robertson-Dworet.
Now it's not a guarantee that all of these writers can come up with a cool idea, but the potential is still there, because Mr. Goldsman successfully recruited some pretty big names for the franchise's writers room. But they all suffer from the same thing: the first four movies of the franchise lacked proper storytelling and worldbuilding.
Mr. Bay, true to his reputation, focused on the visual aspects of the movies, and of course on the massive fights between the giant robots and his most favourite explosions, that he is most known for.
The new writers concepts have to involve those things that Mr. Bay left out on purpose, or else the whole essence of the expanded cinematic universe loses its meaning.
Without interconnectedness, a deep mythology and complex characters this would not work. Fortunately, with the right staff, directors and writers included, this could still be fixed, and Mr. Goldsman's writers have already put some great work on the table.
Aside from the aforementioned prequel, that would take place on the Transformers' homeworld, Cybertron, a Bumblebee solo movie is also a possibility that has been lately the center of the rumours.
