Akiva Goldsman To Run The TRANSFORMERS Shared Universe

Paramount doesn't make a lot of movies. That's not an opinion - it's a simple statement of fact. And one of the things new Motion Pictures Group president Marc Evans wants to do is make more movies. One solution: use that valuable Transformers IP to launch a whole universe of films. 

It's pretty impressive that despite four films without a reasonable story or a single strong character, Paramount thinks Transformers can sustain a shared universe. I don't really know what that would look like - a lot of solo robot spin-offs? One of the problems with the entire Transformers thing is that it's fairly self-contained, without a whole bunch of variety in the concept. I mean, you could do variations on the theme - an all space robots movie! - but you're going to be pretty much stuck making robot movies. 

This is why I'm surprised this announcement isn't the GI Joe and Transformers crossover we've all been expecting. Make a Hasbroverse - that makes more sense. Bring in the Battleship aliens and now you're cooking. But a whole slew of Transformers spin-offs? I'm having a hard time seeing it. 

Then again, that's why I'm not movie genius Akiva Goldsman, who is the central figure in this thing. He won't be writing any of these films, but he will be overseeing the writer's room that hatches the plans for the spin-offs, as they try so hard to ape Marvel. 

The Transformers films are crazy profitable, so expanding on them makes sense. I am curious what the mandate is here - will they all be robot films or will Paramount have a movie about some military group that fights unusual threats? Will they bring in homegrown superheroes? Psychic powers? What even defines a Transformers universe anyway?