The move comes over a year since the December 2018 release of the last Transformers-related pic, Bumblebee. That outing, a 1980s-set spinoff focusing on one of most popular characters, was the most critically acclaimed Transformers movie, although it generated the least of the entries ($468 million worldwide).

The film series — which launched with 2007's Transformers, starring Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox and directed by Michael Bay — hit box office highs with 2011’s Dark of the Moon and 2014’s Age of Extinction, both of which made over $1.1 billion.

Takes on the direction of the new projects were not revealed, but Paramount and Hasbro see the hires as giving the franchise a chance to build out multiple arcs and to also expand the Transformers universe. The toy brand's underlying storyline is the seemingly never-ending battle between the good robots-who-can-turn-into-cars, Autobots, and the wicked robots-who-can-turn-into-military-hardware, Decepticons.

Harold wrote Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword and worked on John Wick: Chapter 2 and John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. He is repped by Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment and Goodman Schenkman.

Vanderbilt’s most recent credit was Netflix’s Adam Sandler hit Murder Mystery. He also co-wrote the Andrew Garfield-starring Amazing Spider-Man movies and penned and directed the newsroom drama Truth starring Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford. Vanderbilt is repped by UFUSE Management and McKuin Frankel.