‘Transformers’ Franchise Embarking on a New Course with ‘Creed II’ Director Steven Caple Jr.

At the beginning of the year, Paramount Pictures hired two different writers to pen two different Transformers scripts that would be developed concurrently. Joby Harold, who wrote King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, was one of the writers hired to pen a new installment of the franchise, and now that project is looking to bring in Creed II director Steven Caple Jr.

The Hollywood Reporter has news on the next Transformers movie in the works at Paramount Pictures. Steven Caple Jr. only has two feature films on his resume: his breakthrough indie project The Land, and the Rocky spin-off sequel Creed II. The latter was a solid sequel to the rejuvenating Creed, but many felt it didn’t quite measure up to the greatness that director Ryan Coogler brought to the franchise. But even so, it proves that Caple Jr. can craft a serviceable sequel with established characters.

Even though Steven Caple Jr. is now boarding the project, we still know next to nothing about what this movie will be. The report mentions that Paramount Pictures is charting a new course for the series, but we’re not sure if that means this is a hard reboot that ignores the rest of the movies, or a soft reboot that picks up sometime after the events of Bumblebee, a movie which somewhat rebooted the franchise by taking the story back to the 1980s and using the original G1 character designs.

When the two new Transformers projects were announced, it was said that Paramount Pictures wanted them to “build out multiple arcs and to also expand the Transformers universe.” That presumably means that any of the human characters previously introduced would have been left behind. While one of the scripts was said to be set in the same universe as the previous movies, the other was said to be a “grand-scale reimagining.” And here’s where things get confusing.

The other script being written by James Vanderbilt was said to be based on Transformers: Beast Wars, with a story set in the future of the “original” Transformers continuity and followed the clash of the Maximals and the Predacons, descendants of the Autobots and Decepticons. So if the Beast Wars movie is set in the future of the “original” Transformers continuity, then that could be the one set in the same universe as the previous movies. That would mean Harold’s script could be the “grand-scale reimagining,” and we could be heading into total reboot territory.

The Transformers movies already have quite the convoluted timeline, especially when it comes to their history with Earth. So all of this confusion is par for the course with the franchise. Keep in mind that in addition to these two movies, Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley is still working on an animated Transformers film focusing on Cybertron and the origins of the war between the Autobots and Decepticons. And that’s separate from the rest of the Transformers movies.

Obviously the Transformers franchise is a high priority for Paramount Pictures, and it’ll be interesting to see what they do with these characters after relying on the universe that Michael Bay built for so long.

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