The folks behind Transformers have spent the last few weeks assembling a writing team that will guide the franchise into the future, and while there are already some big names involved, today the group got just a little bit bigger. This is because new reports have identified Daredevil Season 1 showrunner Steven S. DeKnight as the latest writer to join the brain trust.
News of this new addition comes to us from Deadline, which adds that DeKnight will be the final writer added to what is expected to be a rather influential group. Unfortunately, no further details are available about this development - though he joins a long list of other talented names. In addition to the newcomer, the assembled group includes:
Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind)
Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead)
Art Marcum & Matt Holloway (Iron Man)
Zak Penn (Pacific Rim 2)
Jeff Pinkner (The Amazing Spider-Man 2)
Christina Hodson (Black List script The Eden Project)
Lindsey Beer (the upcoming Short Circuit reboot)
Andrew Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari (Ant-Man)
Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down)
Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Black List script Hibernation)
Steven DeKnight earned an incredible amount of acclaim earlier this year for his work guiding the first season of Daredevil - though that project was hardly his first opportunity to work with geek-centric material. He spent many years guiding the popular Spartacus series on Starz, but some of his earliest work came in collaboration with Joss Whedon. He wrote multiple episodes of both Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel, and also later penned one for Dollhouse. He also had a run for many years on the show Smallville.
You may have noticed that DeKnight's long list of credits doesn't actually include any feature film work, but that's not of concern to Paramount Pictures, Michael Bay, Steven Spielberg and Hasbro. In an interview from last week, Akiva Goldsman (who is the head of the brain trust) revealed that what they are doing with the Transformers franchise is creating what is basically the movie equivalent of a TV writers room. As such, DeKnight's experience on the small screen should suit him perfectly in a group deciding how future sequels and spin-offs should operate.
This development could mean that Steven DeKnight is just a few weeks/months away from writing what could wind up becoming his first feature film script - and given the guy's experience, that is a very interesting prospect. What it could be in the context of the Transformers franchise is a mystery for now (maybe he could be the one who tackles Beast Wars?), but it may be a little while before we start to hear about the results that the brain trust starts generating. As always, be sure to stay tuned for more updates.
