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Paramount, Hasbro Develop Animated Transformers Prequel Film With Toy Story 4 Director

Entertainment news website The Hollywood Reporter revealed on Wednesday that Paramount Animation and Hasbro's eOne studio are producing an animated film prequel to the Transformers franchise, with Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley as the film's director. Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari (Ant-Man and the Wasp) wrote the script.

The film will reportedly center on the relationship between Optimus Prime and Megatron, and will take place on Cybertron, the shared homeworld of both the protagonist Autobots and antagonist Decepticons.

Polygon Pictures and Rooster Teeth are also producing an upcoming animated series titled Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy: Siege (seen right). The series will similarly portray the civil war that tore apart Cybertron, and forms the backstory lore for most of the main entries in the Transformers franchise. The series of six 22-minute episodes will debut on Netflix this year, and Netflix is teasing two more series, including Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy - Earthrise next.

Paramount Pictures is developing two scripts for the live-action Transformers films. One of the projects is inspired by Bumblebee, the sixth and most recent film in Paramount Pictures' Transformers series.

Bumblebee opened in the United States and Canada in December 2018.

Variety reported in May 2018 that Paramount Pictures had removed the planned Transformers 7 film from its 2019 schedule. The film was slated to open on June 28, 2019.

Sources: The Hollywood Reporter (Aaron Couch), Deadline (Mike Fleming Jr.) via Transformer World