Tired of Transformers? Too bad, Paramount is making a bunch more

Paramount Pictures wants more Transformers. Taking a page from Fox’s incubation of three Avatar sequels and what Disney is doing to revive Star Wars with a sequels and spinoffs, the studio is negotiating with Akiva Goldsman to work with franchise director Michael Bay, exec producer Steven Spielberg and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura to organize a “writer’s room” that will incubate ideas for a potential multi-part Transformers sequel, and come up with potential spinoff films based on the billion-dollar franchise culled from the Hasbro toy line. Though Goldsman is the Oscar winning writer of A Beautiful Mind and many other big pics, I don’t get the impression the deal being negotiated calls for him to write one of these films. His will be an oversight role to secure writers and hatch the movies they’ll script. This is happening very quickly. Bay, who has directed all four Transformers films and most recently helmed Transformers: Age Of Extinction, is readying to next direct the Benghazi siege drama 13 Hours. He’d like to have something hammered out when he completes production so that the next Transformers pic can move forward quickly.