Transformers writers room disbanded as new Bay-verse animated movie announced

Some cool new big bits of Transformers news tonight guys.

First up, from the upcoming Bumblebee standalone movie, here’s your first look at Edge of Seventeen star Hailee Steinfeld as Charlie Watson, the owner of Bumblebee before Sam Witwicky came along.

Check that image out below, but keep scrolling for the big news on the franchise.

On the run in the year 1987, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard in a small Californian beach town. Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld), on the cusp of turning 18 and trying to find her place in the world, discovers Bumblebee, battle-scarred and broken. When Charlie revives him, she quickly learns this is no ordinary, yellow VW bug. 

The movie stars Hailee Steinfeld, Pamela Adlon, John Cena, Stephen Schneider, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Jason Drucker, Kenneth Choi, Ricardo Hoyos, Abby Quinn, Rachel Crow, and Grace Dzienny.

Bumblebee opens on July 21, 2018.

Meet Charlie Watson. #BumblebeeTheMovie pic.twitter.com/Z8kA8DGRk3

— Hailee Steinfeld (@HaileeSteinfeld) August 6, 2017

Next up, if the live action movies aren’t enough, there’s an animated adventure set in the current big screen TF universe coming according to TFW:

A new animated Transformers movie is officially in the works.

Hasbro executives confirmed the previously rumored news during an investor call. Boulder Media Studio, which is owned by Hasbro, will be developing the film. The studio is also developing films based on My Little Pony and Stretch Armstrong.

The new film will be just the first in a series of animated features. Hasbro hopes to see a new animated Transformers movie arrive in theaters every year, though they did not say when the first movie will be ready for release. The film will be distributed by paramount Pictures via Allspark Pictures.

Rumour is the movie will likely touch on the history of the war between The Autobots and the Decepticons and how exactly it came to be…

So, a new movie set in the Michael Bay universe? Hmmmmmm… what could that mean? Surely the movies aren’t in trouble. Right? Right? Well…

After the disaster (on every possible level) that was Transformers: The Last Knight – seriously, how bad was that movie!? – it seems all is not well for this franchise, despite the Bumblebee standalone and animated outing.

Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura has been talking about the writer’s room for the future Transformers movies or, as it now, the lack of it now: “We’re really waiting to see how the audience responds to this movie [Bumblebee] and what elements they really love…So I don’t think you can anticipate necessarily that we’ll do a movie in sequence.

“The writers room, which was set up by all of us, was set up to explore the mythology more. It was set up for a few different reasons but the biggest thing that happened in it was they expanded the mythology of Transformers in a way that allowed us to go to King Arthur. There’s different areas, like we’ve examined World War II, etc.”

But the story we heard all along was that the writer’s room led by Aki Goldsman – the man responsible for The Dark Tower and, em, Batman and Robin – was set up to develop the future of the movie franchise, including the introduction of MASK, GI Joe and others… but the message now is clear: The fans are tired of being given below par movies. We’re not idiots, we demand to have good movies.

That’s not too much to ask, is it?