The Energon Pub

Hasbro is going through massive changes. Brian Goldner’s vision was of Hasbro becoming a multimedia company, big on brand content, like Disney. However, the corporate vision has changed since Chris Cocks became the CEO. Since the film division was not working out (several of their bigger investments were not profitable, including Transformers One), it was sold and now we have confirmation from Bloomberg that Hasbro will stop investing in films, Transformers or otherwise. For us fans, that means the future of our beloved franchise lies entirely with Paramount now and what they want to do, with Lorenzo di Bonaventura as their main creative producer to the franchise.

Back to Hasbro’s vision, the article states that it will shift its funds into financing video games. Chris Cocks happens to come from Microsoft and he brought over that tech angle as a way to ensure Hasbro’s future, along with it’s brands. We’ll see if this means a new Transformers game is in the works.

Below is a link to the Bloomberg article along with the relevant quotes:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... m-business

Movies Hasbro co-financed, including the recent Transformers One and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, received critical praise but underperformed at the box office. Last year, the company sold off most of its film and TV business, and longtime rival Mattel Inc. passed the company in annual sales.

While studios such as Sony Group Corp. and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. will continue to make movies based on the company’s products, Hasbro itself won’t co-finance the films. It’s part of a larger strategy to invest more in video and other games, which are popular with kids and adults, and have been taking a greater share of consumers’ leisure time.


“We want to reach fans where they want to play, and increasingly that is through digital expressions of their favorite brands,” Cocks said.

So, huge chunks of Hasbro's business model are being turned upside-down due to the Stewardship of a guy named Cocks.

I think a lot of us, myself included, owe an apology to Michael Bay for the past 17 years of bashing. Even the dumbest ideas in the live-action movies suddenly seem better written than the reality the TF brand is currently in.

Or maybe this will all be revealed as an elaborate April Fool's joke in 4 months.

....I'll admit I think I prefer games over films, and I can see why someone would find it more profitable to enter that market considering the demographic The Transformers(TM) sells to the most.
That being said, it does feel a little unfair due to the unwarranted bashing of the "Bayverse" (the concept as a whole, I know some films do indeed warrant their critical reception and fan backlash), as well as it kinda also...feeling a lot like Paramount's fault?
Just going off of a hunch and a tangent here since it seems like Paramount didn't really care all too much about TFOne's success. I mean, they do, in a typical business sense, but yeah it felt like it wasn't getting as big of a push like past TF films have. At least - from what I saw! I could be totally wrong lol

Either way I'm intrigued to see how this'll go, maybe it was due to positive reception of the "Gamer Edition" in Studio Series? And/or banking off of the nostalgia of High Moon's games and such?
Maybe they think fans have been itching for some "Good Games" since Reactivate has been leaving a gaping hole?

Definitely interested in this shift, that's for sure!

Intrigued?The announced mobile game tells us what to expect.
Some games that are story driven like films?No certitude.

SpaceEagle wrote:Maybe they think fans have been itching for some "Good Games" since Reactivate has been leaving a gaping hole?

Which many of us have, of course. But they're re-releasing the existing games that those fans mostly already have and I haven't seen anything about making new ones in the same vein, just licensed mobile games following the same microtransaction formula with TF pictures - and that doesn't exactly fill me with anticipation.

(FWIW, Earth Wars getting Furman on board was a good move for making it feel more like a solid TF game. But I've decompiled that sucker's data files to extract the scripts for the wiki and its internal fields are littered with 'clan', 'castle', 'kingdom'-type names that really show how it put a TF skin on some standard mobile mechanics.)

I know this may sound crazy - but if Hasbro wants to focus on something, how about - ya know - on making action figures and toys that people want to BUY....?

DeathReviews wrote:I know this may sound crazy - but if Hasbro wants to focus on something, how about - ya know - on making action figures and toys that people want to BUY....?

I think it's probably safe to say that's been doing well - didn't HasTak recently talk about how the toy sales have been quite the juggernaut?

Glyph wrote:I haven't seen anything about making new ones in the same vein, just licensed mobile games following the same microtransaction formula with TF pictures - and that doesn't exactly fill me with anticipation.

Good point honestly, I did really like the recently released Galactic Trials, that felt quite solid if a bit low in content. But that mobile game announcement isn't particularly hope inspiring... Just keeping my fingers crossed this works out for the better and isn't only just MTX filled garbage to twiddle your thumbs with on them smartypants phones.

For everyone who made their non-stop Bayverse bashing (and even other media that is leagues better than what we have today) for even the smallest of reasons just to gas up TF One despite it flopping, congratulations. Y'all got what you asked for. Enjoy.

For everyone else, if the chances of making TF media as big as it once was seems slim, maybe it's best we have our own fiction come to life, especially now with the big-budget stop motion photography or photorealistic CG animation being slowly more approachable to consumers of late than before. Even if everything seems daunting at first glance, there is no better time to share any love for an iteration of this franchise beyond the typical video essay deconstructions plaguing YouTube.

Quantum Surge wrote:For everyone who made their non-stop Bayverse bashing (and even other media that is leagues better than what we have today) for even the smallest of reasons just to gas up TF One despite it flopping, congratulations. Y'all got what you asked for. Enjoy.

Dude, I'm trying to think of a time I've seen you post that hasn't been angry about other people not liking the Bay films.

Quantum Surge wrote:For everyone else, if the chances of making TF media as big as it once was seems slim, maybe it's best we have our own fiction come to life, especially now with the big-budget stop motion photography or photorealistic CG animation being slowly more approachable to consumers of late than before. Even if everything seems daunting at first glance, there is no better time to share any love for an iteration of this franchise beyond the typical video essay deconstructions plaguing YouTube.

Would be great to see it. But, of course, IP infringement and YT strikes...

I hope something good comes out of their 'focus' on games but, either way, no doubt the focus will shift again in time if it doesn't work out / with the next CEO.

I see this as a good thing.
Licence the making of the movies to people who know what they are doing and we may get some incredible movies moving forward.

-Kanrabat- wrote:I see this as a good thing.
Licence the making of the movies to people who know what they are doing and we may get some incredible movies moving forward.

The last time this happened we got The Last Knight.

DeathReviews wrote:I know this may sound crazy - but if Hasbro wants to focus on something, how about - ya know - on making action figures and toys that people want to BUY....?

Nope. Not sure you heard, but Hasbro is divesting from Toy production. They already handed off the toy license of Power Rangers to playmates for 2025.

william-james88 wrote:

-Kanrabat- wrote:I see this as a good thing.
Licence the making of the movies to people who know what they are doing and we may get some incredible movies moving forward.

The last time this happened we got The Last Knight.

D'oh! >.<

Figure the issue is less "people who know what they're doing" and more "studios willing to take all the financial risk themselves".

Glyph wrote:Figure the issue is less "people who know what they're doing" and more "studios willing to take all the financial risk themselves".

And who would be willing to take a risk on « Transformers Two » if not Hasbro?

Bingo.

william-james88 wrote:

Glyph wrote:Figure the issue is less "people who know what they're doing" and more "studios willing to take all the financial risk themselves".

And who would be willing to take a risk on « Transformers Two » if not Hasbro?

Exactly. It's a short-sighted view of Cocks even though it may "make sense" for today's CEO MBAs that only want to climb the corporate ladder by focusing on cutting costs, get a huge payout, then jump ship when the company sinks when the bare-bone products suck.

It's just dumb to have a blanket non-investment in films to bring non-fans to want to get the new toys. It's not about investing in films that's the problem, it's about investing on the right script & budget wisely that's the problem. I actually thought Hasbro was probably TOO hands-off on the films and let Paramount's guys (Producer Bonaventura, the scriptwriters & directors Bay) do whatever they want. Ruining consistency, screen-to-toy accuracy.

I think Hasbro/Paramount can get a pass on AOE & TLK flopping. Bay's OG trilogy were on such high, they saw AOE bombing as an anormally, they tried again with TLK with the same old non-sense, bombastic Bay-bay-bayplosions formula and bombed again. So they learned their lesson, make a very good, and profitable Bumblebee, but then they reverted back to the tired Bay-style non-sense & wasteful budget with ROTB, with a director that's unfit for Bay-style "blockbusters" (I love the Creed franchise, and I like Caple Jr.'s other films too). That unwise budgetting sipped into TF:1 too. Oh yes, it's pretty, but it's not $75m ILM pretty, nor need to (for me, I saw it as a case of "Why all this money spent yet it didn't have a distinct style like Spiderverse, TMNT, or its immediate competitor The Wild Robot?"). How much was spent on star VA?

I think if Hasbro/Paramount treat the franchise more as a genre film rather than keeping trying and failing to make it a Blockbusters franchise then they'll make better products and spend far more wisely.

I thought long about this but how would it be if Transformers Two will be released in form of Crowdfunding ? Could be a possibility if the Fans will help to get this project happen or is this mostly a impossible task ?

Xion wrote:I thought long about this but how would it be if Transformers Two will be released in form of Crowdfunding ? Could be a possibility if the Fans will help to get this project happen or is this mostly a impossible task ?

I can't imagine we'd get many from Gen Pop and casual fans to fund such a project. So we have to figure out how many die-hard TF fans are out there willing back it.

If there's not even that much fans to sustain a mainstream Nicktoon like Cyberverse, nor interest Netflix to finance a post-WFC trilogy show... the hope of getting enough funders for TF:2 is bleak imo.

Let's say Paramount can manage the cost of TF:2 by half - reusing assets, contracting an animaiton studio cheapear than ILM, reducing the use of celebrity VA, etc. That's around 37+ million to produce. And let's say there' $0 spent of marketing because it's a crowdfund.

Even 1 MILLION people is willing to fund it, and on avg they chip in $30ea. That's $30 mil, it's still far from enough to break even. Do we even have a million die-hard fans in the world?

Yeah, maybe you right...

Something worth noting is that this does not shut down the possibility of Transformers Two or further Transformers films. It just means that Hasbro would not be the ones funding them.

If Paramount decides that Transformers is profitable enough to fund, there can absolutely still be a sequel or future movies. The biggest downside to this is that Hasbro would have a lot less say in the final product.

#1 Signal Lancer fan wrote:Something worth noting is that this does not shut down the possibility of Transformers Two or further Transformers films. It just means that Hasbro would not be the ones funding them.

If Paramount decides that Transformers is profitable enough to fund, there can absolutely still be a sequel or future movies. The biggest downside to this is that Hasbro would have a lot less say in the final product.

I am kind of "fine" with Hasbro not financing future TF media... depending on Hasbro's toy strategy. Hasbro dropped the ball on Studio Series since ROTB, in that Hasbro decided to release both many mainline & Studio Series at the same time. I don't care that much for screen accuracy for mainline kids-oriented/gimmick toys, but having Studio Series nowhere near screen accurate enough defeats its purpose. I've always said the strategy for Studio Series should be having figures come out 2 or so years after the movie came out. i.e. start the development cycle AFTER the theatrical release, when you have the CAD files in hand to make both of engineering process easier and the figures looking more screen accurate.

Look at ROTB Mirage. Urgh. I mostly moved to Yolopark for my ROTB fix.

If Hasbro not having those design assets early and forcing Hasbro to right the ship on Studio Series, I'll be happy.