This past summer, Paramount Studios hired 12 writers to write out the bible for the Transformers cinematic universe. The plan was for the writers to come up with ideas that would expand beyond the canon films with spinoffs and prequels. Of the proposed works there were plans for a Bumblebee spinoff, Beast Wars, and more.

Of the nine pitches that were sent to the Transformers brain trust — Michael Bay, Akiva Goldsman, Steven Spielberg, Mark Vahradian, and Lorenzo di Bonaventura, as well as Hasbro’s Brian Goldner — only five were approved. Of those five, a Transformers Cybertron animated origins film will be helmed by Ant-Man co-writers Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari, while Goldsman is confirmed to be scripting Transformers 5. Bay has yet to announce if he will return to direct the fifth untitled Transformers film. It’s still not clear if the other three unnamed projects are spinoffs or prequels, but Hasbro announced that there will be four more Transformers films in the next decade. More on the story below.

The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, Iron Man scribes Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, Pacific Rim 2 writer Zak Penn, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Lost“˜s Jeff Pinkner, Ant-Man co-writers Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari, Lindsey Beer (The Fugitive remake), Christina Hodson (the re-imagining of Wizard of Oz), former Daredevil showrunner Steven DeKnight, Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down), and Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Black List script Hibernation) are all members of the Transformers shared universe writing team. Led by Akiva Goldsman, the plan is to take the franchise beyond the films we have seen so far. Rumors of this expansion include spinoffs centering on Bumblebee, a Cybertron origins film, and possibly Beast Wars. But there is one certainty: Paramount wants to have a Transformers 5, and they want Michael Bay to direct it.

The plan was to have a script ready in time for Bay when he completes his work on the Bengazhi film 13 Hours. While nothing is official yet, it appears that the Armageddon director is interested in coming back to direct his fifth Transformers film. But there is more. A new report is coming out that give us a look at what the writing teams have come up with in four short months. More on the story below.

A movie adaptation of Stephen King‘s popular book series The Dark Tower has been set up and developed at multiple movie studios over the years before being eventually dropped and moving on to the next studio willing to give it a shot.

The latest studio to take on the ambitious adaptation is Sony, who seems to have a lot of faith that it could be one of their next big franchises after we found out back in April that the first movie was being fast tracked by the studio.

Now comes word that Sony has found the spot they want to release the first movie on, setting a release date of January 13, 2017.

After a long gestating series, Stephen King‘s The Dark Tower is on its way to becoming a film. After Universal and WB passed on the project, Sony Pictures picked it up, and now they have signed a director to helm the film, getting The Dark Tower that much closer to production.

A new report says that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo writer and A Royal Affair director and writer Nikolaj Arcel has been hired to write and direct the adaptation of the series of novels that center on gunslinger Roland Deschain. More on the story below.

Since Paramount announced that they would be building a shared universe for the Transformers franchise led by the brain trust of Michael Bay, Steven Spielberg, and Lorenzo di Bonaventura, the studio has been actively looking for writers who could write for the upcoming sequels and spinoffs. Akiva Goldsman has been charged with mapping out the future of the franchise, and now Paramount and Hasbro has found the group of writers that will help Goldsman work out the scripts for these sequels and spinoffs.

According to Deadline, The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman, Iron Man scribes Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, Pacific Rim 2“˜s Zak Penn, and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Lost“˜s Jeff Pinkner are the new team that will write the Transformers expanded universe. More below.