‘Transformers’ Creative Boss Akiva Goldsman to Supervise ‘G.I. Joe’ and ‘Micronauts’ Writers Rooms

Paramount’s writers room experiment on the Transformers franchise proved to be quite productive, with writer / producer Akiva Goldsman overseeing a brain trust that yielded ideas for future sequels and spinoffs. Following his success on the Transformers franchise, the studio has put Goldsman in charge of developing similar writers rooms for G.I. Joe and Micronauts, hoping to revitalize the former and kickstart the latter.

Deadline reports that Paramount and Hasbro have put Goldsman in charge of developing writers rooms for G.I. Joe and Micronauts, a decision backed by producers Steven Spielberg, Michael Bay, Don Murphy and Lorenzo di Bonaventura. The studio has been trying to figure out what to do with Micronauts, their potential franchise based on the classic toy line from the ’70s, ditto for G.I. Joe, which stalled out after the second film.

With Goldsman moving on to develop two other franchises, he will no longer be writing the screenplay for Transformers 5. Instead, Paramount is in talks with writers room members Art Marcum and Matt Holloway (Iron Man) and Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down) to take over scripting duties.

Development of a new G.I. Joe sequel has stalled a bit following the disappointment of Retaliation. Last we heard, D.J. Caruso was being eyed to direct — way back in January. Since then, we haven’t heard much, though Channing Tatum didn’t have anything nice to say about the franchise over the summer.

Paramount may be thinking of rebooting the G.I. Joe series at this point, and even though that means we’d lose Dwayne Johnson, it might be worth the loss if Goldsman can figure out how to rescue the series.