Paramount's M.A.S.K. Movie Lands Bad Boys for Life Writer

Paramount has been hard at work relaunching the Transformers and GI Joe franchises with films like Bumblee and Snake Eyes and now, you can definitely add at least one more toy franchise to that line-up. According to a new report from THR, Paramount's M.A.S.K. movie has hired screenwriter Chris Bremner to formulate a script. Bremner most recently wrote the script for Bad Boys for Life and other reports have suggested he's also penning the script for Disney's National Treasure 3. F. Gary Gray (The Fate of the Furious, Men in Black International) has been attached to direct since the project was first announced in 2018.

M.A.S.K. — or Mobile Armored Strike Kommand — debuted as a toyline from Kenner in 1985. As the norm with toylines of the era, an animated series debuted shortly thereafter and ran for 75 episodes, featuring the titular group battle various villains and baddies, like V.E.N.O.M. — the Vicious Evil Network of Mayhem. The series only lasted two years and the toyline was eventually retired in 1988.

At one point, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein were attached to develop a few Hasbro properties for Paramount, including M.A.S.K. and ROM: Space Knight. In 2018, Goldstein revealed he was sure Paramount wouldn't be using his and Daley's treatments for the movies should the studio continue to develop them.

"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 latest reports from Paramount/Hasbro were that at least two Transformers movies were in development, including one set in the Bumbleebee universe and another serving as a large scale remake of the primary Transformers world. That's all in addition to the casting breakdowns from Paramount's Micronauts movie beginning to circulate online, signaling a significant step forward in the development of the flick.

M.A.S.K. has yet to set a release date.