Nearly two years ago Paramount Pictures organized a writers room for planning a shared universe based on Hasbro properties such as G.I. Joe, Micronauts, and possibly Transformers.
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And though the screenwriting team of John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein developed takes on M.A.S.K. and Rom: Spaceknight, the two don’t think those movies will get made. The two spoke with IGN about the topic, revealing that plans for the Hasbro shared universe could be on hold at the moment.
“Those are probably not likely to see the light of day, unless they’re moving on separate from us,” said Goldstein. “It’s a funny thing. We spent three weeks in a room with a lot of talented writers. We broke 11 or so movies and, I don’t know. It just kind of went into the vortex. There’s been some leadership changes at Paramount, so it’s hard to say. Nobody’s contacted us about those.”
The pair have since moved on, and though they are not returning to Marvel Studios to pen the sequel for Spider-Man: Homecoming, recent reports have pegged them as being in talks to direct the Flashpoint movie for Warner Bros.
But they still look back positively at the experience in the budding Hasbro franchise.
“It was fun,” said Daley. “It was a fun challenge to take these properties that were so barebones in any kind of a narrative and create a movie around them. You know, these little cheap, plastic things, and to give them a backstory was an exciting challenge.”
Rom: Spaceknight is a beloved property for Marvel Comics fans, with the character being featured in a fan-favorite comic run by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema. He has since starred in various series from IDW after Marvel lost the rights to the character.
M.A.S.K. (AKA Mobile Armored Strike Kommand) started out as a series of action figures with an animated tie-in series in the mid ’80s. Though Hasbro has attempted to bring the franchise back a few times, it has never gained its footing as in the original incarnation.
Paramount has recently had some shakeups at the executive level, as Jim Gianopulos became Chief Executive Officer after the late Brad Grey was fired in the wake of a series of flops. The latest Transformers movie, Transformers: The Last Knight, did not perform to company expectations at the box office.
