Exclusive: Akiva Goldsman is No Longer Involved With ‘Transformers’
When Paramount and Hasbro began laying the groundwork for a potentialTransformersCinematic Universe, they hired Oscar-winning screenwriterAkiva Goldsmanto lead a writers room to expand the world. The first movie that resulted from that writers room was this summer’sTransformers: The Last Knight, with a Bumblebee standalone movie next in line.
Things got less certain in the lead-up toThe Last Knight’s release, with both director Michael Bay and star Mark Wahlberg suggesting they were done withTransformersmovies. Now, /Film has learned that Goldsman is done, too. Goldsman spoke with us at the Television Critics Association, where he was representingStar Trek: Discovery.
Asked if he was still involved withTransformers, Goldsman simply said, “No.”
Further clarification comes fromTransformersproducer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura out of the junket for his latest film,American Assassin. Di Bonaventuraexplainedthat the writers room was only set up to develop the elements established inThe Last Knight, such as King Arthur and the WWII flashback. In that story, Di Bonaventura said:
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.
In addition toStar Trek: Discovery, Goldsman is also busy as producer of this week’s releaseThe Dark Tower, aTeen Titanslive-action reboot for Greg Berlanti, and a reboot ofI Am Legend. Goldsman wrote the Will Smith incarnation of the iconic horror novel and is signed to write the reboot, but could not answer specific questions about the second adaptation.
“It’s very early days, so I don’t really have any answer,” Goldsman said.
Look for /Film’s full interview with Akiva Goldsman, which is all aboutStar Trek: Discovery, in September.
