Animated ‘Transformers’ Movie in the Works? [Release Date, Plot & Rumors]

"Ant-Man" screenwriters Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari are reportedly tasked in writing an animated "Transformers" spinoff movie to be released after "Transformers 5." According to an exclusive report from Deadline, the two writers will write an animated film that focuses on the planet where both the good and bad Transformers came from, the Cybertron.

Writing for ScienceFiction.com, Stuart Conover predicts that the animated "Transformers" movie will present an "origin story" that puts Cybertron in the center of the narrative. Conover thinks that the animated film may be a prequel to the whole "Transformers" franchise and may finally focus on the story of the Transformers robots without the humans.

"Chances are we won't even see Earth mentioned unless the film is a Civil War concept that ends with Optimus Prime leading the Autobots to Earth for salvation from the Decepticons," Conover wrote.

Adam Holmes of Cinema Blend is thinking the same way as Conover with regard to how the narrative of the animated "Transformers" will play out. Holmes noted that some viewers actually noticed that previous "Transformers" films focused more on stories of human characters than on the story of the robots.

Adam Chitwood of Collider, on the other hand, thinks that the idea of an animated "Transformers" is still vague at this point.

"It doesn't really make sense to have a live-action Cybertron movie since the environments and characters have to be created digitally. Honestly, you could pretty much consider much of the past three Transformers films 'animated movies' when it comes down to it," to quote Chitwood.

But if the report from Deadline is anything to go by, the reported animated "Transformers" movie already has a sequence treatment at this point. According to the report, Barrer and Ferrari had already pitched ideas and treatments of possible "Transformers" spinoffs, sequels and prequels. They presented their concepts to Steven Spielberg, Michael Bay, Brian Goldner and producers Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Mark Vahradian and Don Murphy. In fact, the concept of an animated "Transformers" is just one among the five pitches seen with potential by Spielberg.

There are 12 writers all in all who pitched to Spielberg. Barrer and Ferrari were joined by writers Ken Nolan, Christina Hodson and Lindsey Beer of "Black Hawk Down;" Robert Kirkman of "Walking Dead;" Art Marcum and Matt Holloway of "Iron Man;" Zack Penn of "Pacific Rim 2;" Jeff Pinker of "Amzaing Spider-Man 2;"  Steven DeKnight and Geneva Robertson-Dworet of "Daredevil."