Josh Cooley to Direct Animated ‘Transformers’ Prequel For Hasbro, eOne and Paramount

Josh Cooley, winner of the Oscar for Best Animated Film for “Toy Story 4,” will direct an untitled animated “Transformers” prequel. Hasbro’s entertainment studio, eOne, will develop and produce the film along with Paramount Animation.

“Ant-Man and the Wasp” writers Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari wrote the script and the film is in the early stages of development. The origin story will take place on the Transformers’ homeworld of Cybertron.

For years, “Transformers” was the ultimate critic-proof franchise. Reviews for films like “Revenge of the Fallen” and “Dark of the Moon” were overwhelmingly negative, but fans and families showed up in droves every summer when one of these films came out, to the tune of over $1 billion each.

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“Transformers” peaked in 2011 with its third installment, “Dark of the Moon,” with $1.12 billion, a year in which Paramount led all studios with $1.95 billion grossed domestically with 19.2 percent market share.

“The Last Knight,” despite being the first film in the series to gross less than $200 million domestically, was Paramount’s top release in a 2017 where the studio only grossed $534 million domestic with a market share of just 4.8 percent.

The Travis Knight directed “Bumblebee” grossed $127.2 million domestically, and $340.8 million internationally, for a total worldwide gross of $468 million, against an estimated production budget of $135 million. “Bumblebee” earned a franchise-best 93 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Deadline first reported the news.

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