Hasbro’s cinematic universe has assembled its writers room, with a Pulitzer Prize winner, an Eisner-winning comic book author and Marvel Studios scribes among those who will be clacking the keyboard.

Michael Chabon, who wrote the novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and worked on Spider-Man 2; Brian K. Vaughan, the creator of seminal comic works Y: The Last Man and Saga and showrunner of Under the Dome; and Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel co-writer Nicole Perlman, will help develop a plan for the creation of an interconnected onscreen universe featuring Hasbro’s G.I. Joe, Micronauts, Visionaries, M.A.S.K. (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand) and ROM brands.

Also in the group are:

► Lindsey Beer, who was just hired to adapt Kingkiller Chronicle for Lionsgate
► Cheo Coker, showrunner of Marvel’s Netflix show Luke Cage
► John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the comedy writing team who penned Spider-Man: Homecoming
► Joe Robert Cole (a writer on People vs. OJ Simpson who is also writing Black Panther for Marvel)
► Jeff Pinkner, who wrote the adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower)
► Nicole Riegel (writer behind the Blacklist script Dogfight)
► Geneva Robertson (one of the writers of new Tomb Raider movie project).

Akiva Goldsman, who won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, will oversee the writers room on behalf of Hasbro and Paramount as well as serving as executive producer for all of the films. He is already serving in a similar capacity for Hasbro’s Transformers writers room and the new session is meant to build on its successful fruits and established road map.

Allspark Pictures, Hasbro’s film label, will produce the films based on this cross-property universe. Hasbro’s chairman and CEO Brian Goldner and executive vice president and CCO Stephen Davis are serving as producers. Josh Feldman, head of Hasbro’s storytelling, will co-exec produce.

The collective’s first meeting will be held Monday on the Paramount lot. Paramount is integrally involved with Hasbro’s cinematic universe and has been the company’s partner on the $3.8 billion grossing Transformers franchise as well as the G.I Joe movies.

Also on hand for the writers room will be Hasbro artists to help up draw up concepts and characters.

The room is diverse, with a strong concentration of black and women writers, something that is unusual not only in fanboy genre spheres but even in Hollywood circles, in which tentpoles tend to be written by a small circle of scribes.

“We first and foremost put together a list of writers who we wanted to be in business with and could be the world-builders that we needed, said Davis. “But we want to be sure that in the room we have diverse perspectives, diverse backgrounds and diverse experiences.”

For example, the properties involved in the universe, such as G.I. Joe and M.A.S.K., have traditionally skewed towards the male segment, but Hasbro wants to broaden the focus on the movies, to make them more inclusive. It’s a theme that already exists in the brands, Davis said.

“Female empowerment is a central theme through a lot of these properties and one of the reasons we wanted diverse voices,” he said.

Said Paramount Pictures chairman and CEO Brad Grey: "Bringing together a writers room of this caliber is a bold step for our partnership, and one that we believe is critical for building these brands into new, successful franchises for the future.”

If you're looking at the success of the Transformers franchise, you might as well put Michael Bay in charge of the whole thing.

But there's a lot of talent in that writing staff so hopefully people will just step back and let them do their thing. Which of course won't happen because it never happens in Hollywood.

In what alternate dimension do they believe we exist?

How long has it been since any of the named properties were culturally relevant?

In what sense were a bunch of cartoons designed to sell action figures reflective of a theme of "female empowerment"?

This is just a whole lot of "what the fuck?"

They have Transformers and GI Joe as the only thing people remotely care about so it makes sense to try to integrate the lesser known products in with those. Granted, realistically, it's more of a way to add stuff to the two flagships - Transformers vs. MASK, GI Joe team with Visionaires or whatever but they're doing what they can with what little they have.

The problem, of course, is that Marvel is a hard act to follow because a) they have a loyal following unlike Hasbro and b) they're universe already exists in comics so it's not something they're just pulling out of their asses.

I'd like to think they had some interesting plan that attracted the quality of writers that they have but seems more likely that they just threw boatloads of money at them.

I doubt this will work but I don't hate the concept for Hasbro.

i can see this whole trend going down the toilet by oversaturation in 3/4 years

I get Spider-Man, but come on

There are Hasbro fanboys that rival comic heads.

>There are Hasbro fanboys that rival comic heads.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/1505349_10153712917035372_594271534_n.jpg?oh=5ce4763a39966b3ccd2b076436df3f6a&oe=57BD3679

Not even a fraction. The fanbase is real. lol

They're seriously counting on the Hasbro fanbase to deliver for Visionaries? Shoot, I liked Visionaries when I was a youngin', but not many other kids did. The toys were a flop, so much so they could barely sustain a season of a cartoon and six issues of comic (it was unpopular enough to get cancelled mid-arc). And Micronauts? And Rom? These aren't titles that are screaming to be the building blocks for a shared cinematic universe.

I honestly think they're overestimating the nostalgia for shit like this. Transformers was a big blockbuster thing that I don't quite understand but GI Joe didn't really do numbers. for most people I think 80's cartoons are more like "oh yeah, that was cool!" rather than "I want to see a grown-up version!"

...with GI Joe and others spinning off of it because Transformers is the only blockbuster there.

Or they could just go out and make an actual quality GI Joe movie, which I think would do numbers (although not HUGE numbers.) Maybe 200 million domestically.

...it's running a good concept into the ground.



Since 1976

Don't want/need the rest but I'll take what I can get it @ this point

the last 2 months. "Lifter- On!"

Are they as good as I remember?

sexist as hell but yeah.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIb5EO10co6Y56cEN3xDXLwvMDn6HMPow

That may be my favorite period of animation.

Robotech had the same style and I really like it.

It just reminds me of a great time to be a kid.

Loved that damn show and the toys. Doesn't need to be a movie but they don't care about my thoughts so let's see.

I suppose there's a way to work Visionaries into that mix but they'd have to completely revamp the backstory IMO.

Still, on paper, Transformers, GIJ, and MASK could- and should- work well in tandem..... on paper.

Paramount may have turned Transformers into a goldmine but for most of us who shell out money for them it's just for the spectacle of giant robots. I know plenty of people who see them in the theater but everyone going in knows it's going to suck and they/we are simply there to see the train wreck on a big screen.

Minus G.I. Joe & Transformers, I have no idea what any of these are.

>Minus G.I. Joe & Transformers, I have no idea what any of
>these are.

Rom - Marvel comic from the late '70s to the mid '80s. Follows an alien space knight and his efforts to defeat another race of invading aliens, who also set their sights on Earth. Reasonably popular at the time. About 10 years ago in Marvel, they brought them back in connection to the Guardians of the Galaxy. Now they're apparently separate. There's about to be a new comic series put out by IDW (the guys who handle the GI Joe and Transformers properties these days).

Micronots - Toy line produced in the late '70s to early '80s. Marvel picked it up as a comic series. Comics lasted until the mid-'80s. Story of microscopic race of people battling for freedom in their micro-universe. Within their comic, they interacting with the Fantastic Four. New comic series coming out through IDW (apparently a comic theme).

M.A.S.K. - Toyline/cartoon/comic from the mid '80s. Heroic task force fights against terrorist organization, both using transforming vehicles (e.g., motorcyle that turns into a helicopter, SUV that turns into a tank, helicopter that turns into a fighter plane, etc.) and helmets/masks that do cool shit.

Visionaries - Short-lived toyline/cartoon/comic from the mid-'80s. More space knights on a foreign planet a lot like Earth battle each other using magic and powers of animals. Didn't last very long.

You can sort of see the connections that they're trying to make here between all of the properties, but I seriously doubt many of these are going to attract huge crowds. I can sort of see Rom or M.A.S.K. working as films, but those might be tough sells too.

This sounds really bad.

This is almost as bad if they greenlit Street Sharks and Battletoads.

As you said, there's no way this brings in a crowd.

As SoulHonky said, they need to do a kick ass GI Joe movie. Start from scratch. And cross that over with Transformers. There's your shared Hasbro universe.

As much as it pains me to say this, they need Michael Bay to make GI Joe. Especially since the 2nd one sucked so bad.

as much as I like the nostalgia of it all none of these properties translate into money making film series.

I don't agree on G.I. Joe 2, it was a big step up from the trainwreck of the first one, but reboot it, share it with the Transformers universe with Bey behind it, and you got stew.

Whoever made that shit was basically overqualified for
the job and just went ham on a franchise that didn't need
to be anywhere near that dope

It's lore and potential are better than GI Joe, and close
to Transformers

----------------------------



O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "

http://www.ew.com/article/2016/06/01/idw-revolution-hasbro-universe

...with their "Dark Universe", this seems like an even WORSE idea now. The Universal Monsters were the first shared universe. This seems like it's gonna be an even bigger disaster.

In a vacuum, I love the idea of using tent pole films as a platform to create a shared universe that connects multiple characters who anchor their own individual series.

Universal’s “Dark Universe” isn’t a bad idea because The Mummy was awful. If the Mummy were stellar, people would be anxious to see the next chapter in that world.

Marvel has successfully proven the viability of the model, but that’s because they’ve largely made good movies that appeal across the board.

I love the idea of creating and connecting film versions of multiple Hasbro properties.

The problem is that this is paramount and they’ve found the magic formula for creating terrible movies that make gobs of cash that allows them to make more terrible movies that make more gobs of cash.

... is that they don't concentrate on individual stories. They're more focused on long-term stories and they subsequently take for granted the initial individual flicks.

Important to note that everyone points at Marvel as the ultimate connected universe success story... but in the first movie, the *only* illusion to an outside universe was the post-credits sequel tease, and the only illusion in the second film was, again, a post-credits scene. It wasn't until they'd proven the bankability of the individual stories that they started parsing out the info for the grander universe.

So The Mummy's biggest problem is it punted on making an interesting story here in hopes that the audience would be down for the Expanded Dark Universe greater story and what it teased.

You're right that if The Mummy would've been dope that audiences would've been all-in... but I think it would've been hard for them to make it dope with as long-term-teasey a storyline as they chose to go with here. The actual characters for this individual story are big-time duds-- it's clear where Kurtzman's attentions were.

by writers, directors and producers.

I don’t think development with the intent to create a larger universe drove the choices that lead to a poor film with The Mummy or BvS or any other franchise.

It’s like Sam Raimi blaming the fan and studio desire to put Venom in a Spider-Man movie for the awful Spider-Man movie he made.

Venom wasn’t the reason he created that awful jazz club scene with My Chemical Peter, though Venom certainly became Raimi’s Escape Goat ©.
I haven’t seen the Mummy so I can’t comment on what did or didn’t work for or against it, but I’d generally argue that the problems inherent in bad storytelling lie with the choices made by the writers, directors and producers. Even if the choice was made to focus on big-picture storytelling, they probably made poor choices en route to that goal.

I know that for me the visuals in the trailers I’ve seen scream bland, generic and dated.

I also know that the trailers as a whole presented a bland, generic and dated premise that reeked of laziness and an over reliance on a big name to carry the day.

To that end they didn’t even do their job in getting me interested enough to buy a ticket.

I just don’t think there’s anything about a “cinematic universe” premise that’s inherently problematic. I think the problem lies in the creative choices by the people charged with executing that concept and if they choose to rely on names and the universe concept itself at the expense of the quality of the individual film, that’s not exclusive to the concept.

What Universal tried (trying) to do with the Monsters make sense. A DC Universe makes sense.

I just can't see it with Hasbro. As I stated above, most of these properties are goofy (no offense to you or anyone in here who digs 'em). I watched some of this shit on YouTube and I can't believe their gonna try to milk this shit.

And what's worse is Transformers is gonna have it's own shared universe and it has to tie back in with this shit and GI Joe? Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

MASK, GI JOE, Transformers, Visionaries, there's a way to connect all that into a cohesive story.

Trim the fat, focus on the compelling aspects of each and pepper each standalone with strands of connective tissue.

Real Steel was a movie based off Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots and they found a way to create a compelling story with heart and it was fantastic.

There's no way in hell you or anyone else heard about a movie about Rock 'Em Sock Em Robots before reading a script and thought "That's a great idea!", but it was a fantastic movie.

If you had told pro wrestling fans 30 years ago that a giant zombie would become one of the most enduring, beloved and iconic pro wrestlers of all time? They'd have laughed at you the way most laugh at the "it's still real to me" guy. .

It's all about the right people in the right roles executing in the right way. Micronaughts could, in theory, be a huge success if someone with the right vision drove it.

Build those characters. Let it exist on its own. Any tie-ins to future things should be minimal at most. Don't immediately green-light hundreds of millions into sequels. Invest in the first movie, see how it does, and adjust budgets and stories accordingly.

Personally I think this is already dead in the water from a quality standpoint based on the last 3 Transformers movies, all of which amplified the worst elements of the first while chipping away at the better elements.

For now there's little to no reason to think they're about to get serious about making quality movies that make gobs of cash instead of awful movies that make gobs of cash.

If they flipped their bombast-to-substance ratios they'd have a shot though.

w this sort of thing

props to him for even still being able to hustle gigs like this i guess, i kinda had this sense that he had become a pariah in big-budget hollywood

Bumblebee, coming at the end of the year, will be the last one of the current series. Last Knight sequel/sixth film in the Bay-verse has apparently been scrapped. Next movie isn't planned to be released until 2021.

Anyway, it doesn't appear to mean that they're scrapped the idea of the Hasbro shared universe. They just signed a new deal with Paramount and are planning to release new GI Joe and Micronauts films in 2020 and 2021 to go with the new Transformers film.

https://screenrant.com/transformers-bumblebee-movies-reboot/

They need to run far, far away from Bay on the next iteration.

Literally every other property above is a better idea and connects more naturally with TF and GI Joe.

CRAZY