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Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team

Transformers News: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team

Thursday, April 24th, 2014 11:19AM CDT

Categories: Cartoon News, Movie Related News, People News
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On a not strictly entirely related Transformers movies note, at least not in the foreseeable future, two of the biggest names in the film and TV industry, from production, writing, creation and even directing are undergoing a big shift. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, the men behind the scripts for Transformers and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, producers of Transformers: Prime and long-time collaborators with the likes of J.J. Abrams (from Alias, to Fringe to the new Star Trek features) have announced the end of their partnership. Read more below, from an article in The Hollywood Reporter.

As we said, this does not affect our favourite transforming robots for what we can see as yet, as Ehren Kruger was working on both Dark of the Moon and Age of Extinction. Will it affect the confirmed upcoming animated series sequel to Prime and Beast Hunters though? Leave your thoughts below!

Transformers News: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting


Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, the biggest writing team in modern tentpole movies, are breaking up.

The duo, who first began writing together on the TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys before working with J.J. Abrams on Alias, have worked on the Star Trek and the Transformers franchises (the latter has grossed $2.7 billion so far, with a fourth installment on the way), as well as Mission: Impossible III. They also worked on the upcoming Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Amazing Spider-Man 3.

THR has confirmed the pair are parting way on the movie side, though sources say the TV side of their production company, K/O Paper Products, will remain intact for the time being. The company has a deal with CBS TV Studios.

Insiders say the parting is amicable and has been brewing for some time as the writers have begun focusing on separate franchises. Orci is spending more time with Trek and is even in talks to direct the third installment. (No negotiations are taking place just yet but the writer already has Abrams' blessing.)

Kurtzman, who directed the drama People Like Us, is focusing more and more on the Spider-Man franchise and is attached to direct the spinoff Venom.

It is unclear how the film projects will be divided.
Credit(s): The Hollywood Reporter

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Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1568287)
Posted by JazZeke on April 24th, 2014 @ 11:45am CDT
>:oP Hopefully this means an improvement.
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1568308)
Posted by Rodimus Prime on April 24th, 2014 @ 12:36pm CDT
I won't miss these jagovs. At all. The 1st movie and TF:Prime were pretty good, but they butchered RoTF, mainly due to their commitment to the Star Trek movie and the strike. Next time don't take more work than you can handle. Turds.
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1568310)
Posted by dragons on April 24th, 2014 @ 12:50pm CDT
Rodimus Prime wrote:I won't miss these jagovs. At all. The 1st movie and TF:Prime were pretty good, but they butchered RoTF, mainly due to their commitment to the Star Trek movie and the strike. Next time don't take more work than you can handle. Turds.


It wasn't all there fault on revenge of fallen it was mostly due writers strike not enough time to do things they wanted to really do in film because of it as bay and Hollywood replied in interviews of writer strike going on during revenges of fallen we almost had no fallen sequel in that year because of the strike some movies where pushed back or delayed because of strike and movies that where being made in strike chaos they had to make sacrifices to go through with budget what they hired to work with and strike made things more difficult to do things if it wasn't for strike of writers in Hollywood revenge of fallen would have been little better movie
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1568387)
Posted by Mr_Autobot411 on April 24th, 2014 @ 4:05pm CDT
the only good thing these guys did was TF prime
I love the transfomers, i have hundreds of figures.......but the movies were the worst pieces of garbage ive ever seen.
I think a lot of ppl got fooled into liking these movies cuz there was "cool" action scenes and the bots looked awesome......well the actions scenes are the easiest part of the movies to write and film.......where was the story u turds? the bots were over done........i didnt want Prime to have a face, his color scheme sucked.......there was no character development at all.......remember Jolt being in the movies? well he was there, but didnt say a godamn word.......why bother having him in the movie........its like these guys didnt know anything about TF, esp Micheal bay who is a hack for a director if ive ever seen one!
So im personally waiting for a reboot, and a better director and writers to come along.......cuz from what ive seen in the tf4 trailers makes me wanna hurl........grimlock dino mode looks ridiclous, and primes new design makes a mockery of what we grew up loving with him.
and the movie toys suck!!!

:BOT: :CON:
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1568411)
Posted by TimothyR on April 24th, 2014 @ 4:47pm CDT
dragons wrote:
Rodimus Prime wrote:I won't miss these jagovs. At all. The 1st movie and TF:Prime were pretty good, but they butchered RoTF, mainly due to their commitment to the Star Trek movie and the strike. Next time don't take more work than you can handle. Turds.


It wasn't all there fault on revenge of fallen it was mostly due writers strike not enough time to do things they wanted to really do in film because of it as bay and Hollywood replied in interviews of writer strike going on during revenges of fallen we almost had no fallen sequel in that year because of the strike some movies where pushed back or delayed because of strike and movies that where being made in strike chaos they had to make sacrifices to go through with budget what they hired to work with and strike made things more difficult to do things if it wasn't for strike of writers in Hollywood revenge of fallen would have been little better movie


damn, not a single period. congrats. lol.

but i agree on both of your points.. i don't think anything they've done has been all that spectacular.
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1568418)
Posted by NeonPrime on April 24th, 2014 @ 4:57pm CDT
Oh no...Bert and Ernie are breaking up?! Guess this is the Age of Extinction. The first movie will always be my favorite and Prime was AMAZING! I'm certainly going to miss their contributions to this franchise. Thanks for the memories guys and good luck with your future endeavors!
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1568435)
Posted by SlyTF1 on April 24th, 2014 @ 5:45pm CDT
I just hope the Venom movie is awesome.
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1568454)
Posted by Burn on April 24th, 2014 @ 6:43pm CDT
I wouldn't be giving them much credit for TF:Prime, they were only Executive Producers.

That would be like giving Don Murphy credit for the first movie, and he sure as hell doesn't deserve any credit.
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1568530)
Posted by Supreme Convoy on April 24th, 2014 @ 11:47pm CDT
That's a shame to read because those guys have written some of my favorite movies of all time.
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1568824)
Posted by T-Macksimus on April 25th, 2014 @ 11:08pm CDT
A lot of folks are putting a whole lot of undo blame for things sucking on the team that doesn't deserve it. The writers bust their asses and strain their brains to crank something out within a given time frame and under specific guidelines most times only to have the producer, the director and the actors utterly demolish their work. This doesn't just go for Kurtzman and Orci, this goes for all show and movie writers. You guys think it's easy? Give it a shot yourselves and I'll sit back and watch as some director chews you up and spits you out for a snack and sh**s all over your effort and your self-esteem. You folks have no freaking clue what the writers go through and what they deal with from the heads of the studios in terms of complete and total unnecessary and unwarranted b.s. but you sure seem to THINK you do and that you have a right to bitch about it and lay the blame at their feet. I can guarantee you that what the writers originally pen and what makes it to screen aren't even remotely close to the same thing.
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1568834)
Posted by Burn on April 25th, 2014 @ 11:33pm CDT
T-Macksimus wrote:You folks have no freaking clue what the writers go through and what they deal with from the heads of the studios in terms of complete and total unnecessary and unwarranted b.s. but you sure seem to THINK you do and that you have a right to bitch about it and lay the blame at their feet. I can guarantee you that what the writers originally pen and what makes it to screen aren't even remotely close to the same thing.


And you know do you? You base this statement on personal experience? Do tell!
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1568845)
Posted by Autobot032 on April 26th, 2014 @ 12:49am CDT
T-Macksimus wrote:A lot of folks are putting a whole lot of undo blame for things sucking on the team that doesn't deserve it. The writers bust their asses and strain their brains to crank something out within a given time frame and under specific guidelines most times only to have the producer, the director and the actors utterly demolish their work. This doesn't just go for Kurtzman and Orci, this goes for all show and movie writers. You guys think it's easy? Give it a shot yourselves and I'll sit back and watch as some director chews you up and spits you out for a snack and sh**s all over your effort and your self-esteem. You folks have no freaking clue what the writers go through and what they deal with from the heads of the studios in terms of complete and total unnecessary and unwarranted b.s. but you sure seem to THINK you do and that you have a right to bitch about it and lay the blame at their feet. I can guarantee you that what the writers originally pen and what makes it to screen aren't even remotely close to the same thing.


Riiiiight.

The Zorro sequel? Overblown, boring and way too long. Not an original creation.

Mission Impossible 3? Not bad, but a tad long, plus the mask thing wore out it's welcome. Not an original creation.

The Island? Ripoff, but a well made one. Not an original creation.

Transformers? Boring for a full hour in a 2.5 hour movie. Optimus was a 30 foot tall suicidal punching bag. Not an original creation.

Revenge Of The Fallen? Crazy and all over the map (and I enjoyed it!) with many flaws including Optimus being a psycho killer. Not an original creation.

Star Trek? Kirk couldn't stay off a ledge, couldn't fight worth a damn, and it alienated a lot of fans. (I don't care about the last part, I welcome it.) Not an original creation.

Hawaii 5-0 (or however they're spelling it out)? Some good storylines, some muddled, some rather boring. Not an original creation.

Star Trek Into Darkness? Very good, can't deny, but a tad too long in the final act, and again...Kirk can't stay off a ledge. Not an original creation.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and 3? 2's getting some mixed reviews already. Not an original creation.

I repeat myself over and over, but it's worth it, because none of their works are original creations. Perhaps Alias, but that was more J.J. Abrams than them and Fringe was a straight up rip off of The X-Files, so no real original creations of their own. Some good ideas, I don't deny that, but they can be blamed for a lot of problems in their movies. They're flippers, and that's really all they are. They take a property that needs a bit of fixing up (or doesn't) and then flip it with their own spin on it. Great, right? No!

I'd like to see them do something truly original. I'd like to see if they really can direct. (If it's anything like their writing skills, eh...) Bay's at fault for some of the TF movie ideas, I know this, but people make him out to be the sole villain in all of this and he's not. They wrote the first two films and they did well, but they had help on both films. John Rogers and Ehren Kruger were probably responsible for the GOOD parts of the scripts. Especially Kruger. DOTM was excellent and he had no "help" from them.

I do believe Orci & Kurtzman have real talent, they do bring old properties back to life with gusto and oomph, but...they're not perfect and they rely on the same ideas over and over and it's sloppy. It's easy and lazy. I want some real effort.
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1568848)
Posted by Burn on April 26th, 2014 @ 1:08am CDT
Autobot032 wrote:I'd like to see them do something truly original.


Fringe.

I'd like to see if they really can direct.


That's what they're hoping to do.
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1568934)
Posted by Rodimus Prime on April 26th, 2014 @ 10:18am CDT
T-Macksimus wrote:I can guarantee you that what the writers originally pen and what makes it to screen aren't even remotely close to the same thing.


Please include a list of your Hollywood credits with that statement, otherwise you're full of shit.
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1573585)
Posted by TurboMMaster on May 13th, 2014 @ 1:31pm CDT
While I'm far from beign their fan, and I consider them as a medicore authors. I still belive that they are Michael Bay's Scapegoats. It's almost impossible to write a good scenerio when you are working for a moron, and as long as MB is in charge, even Shakespeare itself wouldn't help.
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1573618)
Posted by Burn on May 13th, 2014 @ 3:13pm CDT
TurboMMaster wrote:While I'm far from beign their fan, and I consider them as a medicore authors. I still belive that they are Michael Bay's Scapegoats. It's almost impossible to write a good scenerio when you are working for a moron, and as long as MB is in charge, even Shakespeare itself wouldn't help.


Just because you don't like his movies doesn't make him a moron.

If he was, he wouldn't be at the helm of so many financially successful movies. Go watch a Uwe Boll movie.
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1573660)
Posted by Rodimus Prime on May 13th, 2014 @ 4:55pm CDT
Burn wrote:Go watch a Uwe Boll movie.


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I actually liked Rampage. But that was the only one.
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1573690)
Posted by Burn on May 13th, 2014 @ 7:17pm CDT
Rodimus Prime wrote:
Burn wrote:Go watch a Uwe Boll movie.


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I actually liked Rampage. But that was the only one.


You admit to liking a Uwe Boll movie?

Dead to me ... >:oP
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1573697)
Posted by Rodimus Prime on May 13th, 2014 @ 7:40pm CDT
Burn wrote:
Rodimus Prime wrote:
Burn wrote:Go watch a Uwe Boll movie.


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I actually liked Rampage. But that was the only one.


You admit to liking a Uwe Boll movie?

Dead to me ... >:oP


If I cared, I might be hurt by that. Image But I liked the movie because he got away with it at the end, and it's something I've thought about doing a few times. I'm not actually gonna do it, so don't call the feds, please.

Now you got me wondering what a TF movie directed by Uwe Boll would be like. And now I want to kill myself. Thanks. D**k. Image
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1573757)
Posted by Burn on May 14th, 2014 @ 3:15am CDT
Anyhoo ... Orci pretty much confirmed to make his directorial debut with Star Trek 3. Promises less lens flares but more plot holes.
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1573763)
Posted by Rodimus Prime on May 14th, 2014 @ 4:18am CDT
Burn wrote:Anyhoo ... Orci pretty much confirmed to make his directorial debut with Star Trek 3. Promises less lens flares but more plot holes.


I can just see it now... "Star Trek: The Death of a Franchise"

But seriously, I'm willing to wait and see, just based on JJ Abrams's recommendation. But I have low expectations.
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1574593)
Posted by TurboMMaster on May 16th, 2014 @ 8:48am CDT
Burn wrote:Just because you don't like his movies doesn't make him a moron.
But changes he did in scripts of RotF and DotM does.

Burn wrote:If he was, he wouldn't be at the helm of so many financially successful movies
It's arguable. Both "Bad Boys" and "Armageddon" are good mostly because of the great cast. If there is anything good in he's movies, it's action scenes and ability to pick up right actor(At least sometimes)... But I quess producers and FX guys have part in good parts too. So I quess it's possible that "Bad Boys" or "Armageddon" would be at least as good without MB.

Burn wrote:Go watch a Uwe Boll movie.
Not all he's movies were trash, "Postal" actually was great fun, not only as a Video Game adaptation. Plus at least he is honest". It's pretty clear that he's movies are made for money. And i prefer that kind of attitude over Bay's faked artistic soul.
Rodimus Prime wrote:Now you got me wondering what a TF movie directed by Uwe Boll would be like. And now I want to kill myself. Thanks. D**k. Image
I don't belive that Transformers could be much worse than RotF or DotM. There isn't that much place on the bottom.
Re: Movie Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen, Prime) Splitting as Creative Team (1574619)
Posted by Rodimus Prime on May 16th, 2014 @ 9:41am CDT
TurboMMaster wrote:I don't belive that Transformers could be much worse than RotF or DotM. There isn't that much place on the bottom.


I'll give you RoTF. Other than the forest fight, it was a turd. But DoTM was a pretty good TF movie, aside from the injustice done to Megatron and Shockwave.

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