Paramount and Hasbro are planning to revamp the live-action Transformers film franchise with a director already in mind. After searching for months, Creed 2 director Steven Caple Jr. is reportedly the top choice of Paramount and Hasbro to helm the next Transformers film.
In January, Paramount opted to reinvent the Transformers film series by putting two scripts into active development simultaneously. James Vanderbilt reportedly penned a screenplay based on the Beast Wars series while Jaboy Harold wrote a script for a story rumored to be set in the same universe as director Travis Knight’s Bumblebee.
Deadline reports that while Steven Caple Jr. and Paramount have not yet begun negotiations, a deal between both parties should be reached in the coming weeks. The Creed 2 filmmaker reportedly became viewed as the best choice to direct the revamped Transformers franchise after several meetings with studio executives and producers, including Paramount Motion Picture President Emma Watts. Paramount had selected Harold’s script as the next entry in the Transformers franchise and began taking pitches from potential directors after allowing the scribe to complete the final touches on his screenplay at the end of the summer. In addition to his work on Creed 2, a sequel to Ryan Coogler’s Creed and the eighth installment of the Rocky film series, Caple Jr. is known for directing episodes of Grown-ish and the drama feature titled The Land.
The live-action Transformers film series launched with the first installment from director Michael Bay in 2007. After returning to helm the four sequels, Bay departed the franchise to focus on smaller projects. Paramount then decided to establish a writer’s room with the intent of creatively reinventing the Transformers films, eventually leading to the release of a Bumblebee spin-off set during the ’80s with Hailee Steinfeld.
While the first five installments of the live-action Transformers film series have collectively earned over $4 billion worldwide, none of them were well-received upon their release. The Bumblebee spin-off ultimately ended its box office run as the lowest-grossing entry in the franchise, but it was produced on a relatively smaller budget and received considerably more praise.
Paramount and Hasbro are also developing an animated Transformers prequel set on Cybertron. Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley has been tapped to helm the film from a script written by Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari.
Transformers is now available on Netflix.
Source: Deadline
