I remember reading an article that said Hasbro and Paramount signed a new deal that now gave greater creative control to Hasbro. I’m not sure anyone would actually know lol, but does Hasbro now have the power to see what movie Paramount is putting together and just be like “Nah stop this, you guys aren’t going in the direction we want this to go, do this instead.”? I was just thinking about it today because it had me wondering if maybe it was Hasbro that told Paramount to reshoot things connecting to the Bay films before Bumblebee came out.
Hasbro provides a significant part of the financing (probably a increasingly important portion, as financing becomes more difficult), so don't underestimate the power of their purse. They likely have a very strong say in what characters appear, what they can do, and what they look like, because Hasbro has to be able to go back and sell toys of the movie. It is extremely likely Hasbro has, either for this film or others, weighed in and asked for changes to help them better fit the movie to their strategy for the Transformers brand.
Well that's it. Hasbro got the majority control now since they OWN the TF brand. They now it better than anyone else. And they're fully aware of the aftermath of TLK, the film franchise needed change.
Hasbro now funds 50% IIRC starting with Bumblebee, so they now have considerable pull compared to before
That's good to hear. I wonder how other parties factor into this. Hasbro having more control only works if they hire the right person for the job. They tend to give people free reign as long as toy sales don't suffer.
I've always liked that about Hasbro. It can go one way or the other, but I've seen a lot more creators get to create their Transformers as opposed to other franchises.
I saw a video today where someone compared it to the Spider-Man movies, where Sony creates the films but Marvel has all the creative control on the character and direction. Hopefully it’s going to work like this now.
They need to do a loose adaptation of transformers 1986 movie but improve upon it. Maybe try to make it a trilogy that starts with a loose adaptation of the original g1 series. The Bay era imo is over. If there is another transformers movie made they would have to go the g1 route, make a solid movie with good storyline and love letter to the fans. Its the only chance it has to be successful
G1 movie - solid movie with good storyline... Does not compute... No, seriously I love the 86 movie, but it's a pretty simple story and I don't really think it would be a success in today's cinema environment without some significant changes. For better or worse, that's pretty much what the Bay films were, they borrowed extremely heavily from G1, as did the Bumblebee film. They succeeded (well, overall, people got tired of the Bay films), I believe in part because of those iconic elements that people still like today, but that definitely isn't the biggest reason for their success. That people have been asking for a live action 1986 movie since before the 2007 one came out, and that the film franchise did so well anyway, is one of the signs that hardcore, old-school fans supporting the films barely moves the needle in terms of their performance compared to the overall general audience. Diehard G1 fan support is appreciated, and there's been a ton of bones thrown to that group over the last decade, but it's just not a big enough group to have a 100-300million dollar movie be 'for them' first and foremost.
I really don't think the idea of a live-action remake of the '86 movie would be a good idea (even a loose adaption). The original movie flopped when it came out, and it wasn't well-received by critics or fans at the time. Honestly, it's only grown a cult following because of nostalgia and time. It's not an underappreciated masterpiece or anything. And the cult following isn't enough to make a remake a success. Even then, there's still a large portion of the fanbase who doesn't like it. They'd honestly be better off remaking the opening Season 1 three-part episode, since fans probably have fonder memories of that. Aside from that, I feel like the '86 movie is referenced way too much in modern Transformers media. I'm pretty sure a decent chunk of Prime's collective runtime was devoted to rehashing stuff from the '86 movie. I think we're finally starting to move away from '86 references, thankfully. It's not that the references are bad, just overused (and often pointless). I really want to see the Transformers doing new things, with new storylines and adventures. I actually like how the Bayverse has created new stories instead of rehashing previous ones. Ironically, the one movie that did repeat a G1 storyline (Dark of the Moon) is probably the most boring to me. (I'm not saying it's boring because of this, although it is interesting to note.)
Ironically, while I do agree with you that I like the Bay movies for trying new things story-wise, I also think the other movies besides DotM, Bumblebee included, are all heavily inspired by existing G1 fiction. The 2007 movie has many elements of MTME, RotF Changing Gears as well as Jetfire switching sides, AoE core story is arguably FFoD Pt. 1, with alien bounty hunters hunting the Autobots for their creators, and TLK has many things similar to Madman's Paradise, with a shapeshifting Quintesson (?) sorcer(ess) who is deceptive and enemies with a powerful dragon as the main antagonist. Truth be told, I think any future movies, whether they take place in the Bayverse or another universe, will likely have some inspiration from G1 fiction. That said, like you I'd rather see novel stories that are mixtures of previous fiction (like the existing movies) rather than blatant remakes. Truth be told, there is no truly, 100% original story in existence at this point in human history; you just have to tweak and mix the ideas of existing fiction to make it seem novel enough.
Yeah, I definitely agree. I'm fine with stories taking inspiration from G1 episodes (or other sources), but the idea of a straight up remake just isn't very interesting to me.
