Micronauts, Visionaries, M.A.S.K and ROM Comic Books Optioned

Akiva Goldsman, who won an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind, will oversee the writers room on behalf of Hasbro and Paramount as well as serving as executive producer for all of the films. He is already serving in a similar capacity for Hasbro’s Transformers writers room and the new session is meant to build on its successful fruits and established road map.

Allspark Pictures, Hasbro’s film label, will produce the films based on this cross-property universe. Hasbro’s chairman and CEO Brian Goldner and executive vice president and CCO Stephen Davis are serving as producers. Josh Feldman, head of Hasbro’s storytelling, will co-exec produce.

The collective’s first meeting will be held Monday on the Paramount lot. Paramount is integrally involved with Hasbro’s cinematic universe and has been the company’s partner on the $3.8 billion grossing Transformers franchise as well as the G.I Joe movies.

Also on hand for the writers room will be Hasbro artists to help up draw up concepts and characters.

The room is diverse, with a strong concentration of black and women writers, something that is unusual not only in fanboy genre spheres but even in Hollywood circles, in which tentpoles tend to be written by a small circle of scribes.

“We first and foremost put together a list of writers who we wanted to be in business with and could be the world-builders that we needed, said Davis. “But we want to be sure that in the room we have diverse perspectives, diverse backgrounds and diverse experiences.”

For example, the properties involved in the universe, such as G.I. Joe and M.A.S.K., have traditionally skewed towards the male segment, but Hasbro wants to broaden the focus on the movies, to make them more inclusive. It’s a theme that already exists in the brands, Davis said.

“Female empowerment is a central theme through a lot of these properties and one of the reasons we wanted diverse voices,” he said.

Said Paramount Pictures chairman and CEO Brad Grey: “Bringing together a writers room of this caliber is a bold step for our partnership, and one that we believe is critical for building these brands into new, successful franchises for the future.”