Transformers animated movie planned with Ant-Man writers

Paramount is expanding the Transformers universe into the animated world with an origin story from Ant-Man scribes Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari, their reps confirmed to EW.

The story will focus on the Autobots and Decepticons on their home planet, Cybertron; thus, it takes place before Michael Bay’s first live-action Transformers in 2007, when Optimus Prime et al. escape a war-torn Cybertron for Earth.

In other Transformers news, the fifth installment in the franchise, which will star Age of Extinction headliner Mark Wahlberg, picked Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman to write, EW confirmed. The fourth Bay Transformers feature raked in $1.4 billion worldwide, so another Wahlberg-fronted film makes sense. While there is no hard date of release, that’s expected in 2017 before the animated movie.

Bay clarified on Twitter on Thursday that he has not officially signed on to direct the fifth installment, saying “I have not commited to any idea as of yet.”

Paramount declined comment on both hires, which were the result of a massive collaboration of writers that also included Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman.

Deadline first reported the story.

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