Deadline is reporting that Paramount Pictures and Hasbro's film studio eOne have enlisted Academy Award-winner Josh Cooley (Toy Story 4) to helm an upcoming big-screen animated Transformers prequel, which is currently believed to be an origin story and will be set in a separate universe from the live-action film series.
Ant-Man and the Wasp scribes Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari have been tapped to pen the script, with Cooley currently in the process of overseeing a final draft. Barrer and Ferrari have been developing the script for several years now, having initially been commissioned to write the film when the studio created their Transformers writer's room.
While plot details are understandably vague, the film is said to take place entirely on Cybertron and will revolve around the adversarial relationship between the Autobots and Decepticons, centering on Optimus Prime and Megatron.
Paramount fast-tracking an animated Transformers movie may be a sign of things to come as major studios readjust their production strategies to the new normal. A big-budget animated movie has proven to be much easier to develop than a live-action blockbuster in current times, because much of the work can be done while respecting social distancing guidelines, from home or another remote location.
As for the live-action films, sequels to the main Transformers film series and Bumblebee are still in development and are also being fast-tracked, but they're likely much further out than this new animated movie.