TRANSFORMERS: Films Set to Inhabit Marvel Style Shared Universe

Transformers Films To Exist In Shared Universe. Paramount Pictures is looking to follow Marvel’s successful shared universe model by establishing their Transformers film franchise as the center of their own cinematic expanded universe titles. Paramount is currently negotiating with Akiva Goldsman to work with the franchise’s former director Michael Bay, executive producer Steven Spielberg and producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura to set up a writer’s room in order to conceive ideas for a “multi-part” Transformers sequel as well as potential spinoff films.

There are some fantastic writing and directing credits on Goldman’s resume and Paramount is bringing him on board to hire and work alongside the franchise’s creative team in an overseer type role. The studio is looking to get production on the next batch of Transformers films moving forward as soon as possible in order to maximize the box-office shattering profits that the films consistently bring in. The latest installment in the franchise, Transformers: Age of Extinction raked in close to $1.1 billion.

It looks as though shared universes are the next big studio trend. Afterall, the shared universe format is the natural extension of Hollywood’s blockbuster film-making model. Studios are currently weary of dropping huge sums of money on original films with no proven track record at the box office. This type of risk aversion has lead to the many reboots, prequels and sequels that are currently overrunning movie theaters. By taking the shared universe approach, the studios are getting even more bang for their buck by splitting those proven sequels and reboots into sub-sequels.

In theory, the process should expand the story telling potential of movies. 20 years ago a film like The Avengers would only have 2 hours to tell a complete story. Now with all the shared universe films (Iron Man, Thor etc.) we get about a dozen hours of story telling which is a definite win for the art form. On the other end of the spectrum, a hot mess of a film like Age of Extinction would have fared better if 45-minutes were cut out from that bloated, cgi acid trip of a Hasbro commercial. Somehow I feel taking the Michael Bay’s Transformer films and telling “sub-stories” based on those stories is the equivalent of Michael Keaton making a clone of his clone in Multiplicity.

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Source:  Deadline