Hasbro Lines Up Impressive Roster of Talent to Develop Its Cinematic Universe

Even movies about toys need writers. (Sometimes. [I guess.])

That’s why Hasbro, in an effort to compete with Marvel, DC, and every other company out there trying to create an integrated multiproperty cinematic universe has assembled a writer’s room of talent to figure out how to merge their assorted toy brands, including G.I. Joe, M.A.S.K., ROM, Micronauts, and Visionaries, into one streamlined movie continuity. The Hollywood Reporter says the Hasbro writer’s room will meet for the first time on Monday with an impressive roster of talent.

The team includes Brian K. Vaughan, brilliant comic book creator of series like Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina, Michael Chabon (Pulitzer Prize-winner for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and a screenwriter on Spider-Man 2 and John Carter), and John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (writer/directors of the recent Vacation remake/sequel, and writers of the upcoming Spider-Man reboot for Sony).

There’s also Lindsey Beer (who’s also working on the next Transformers), Cheo Hodari Coker (who runs Netflix’s Luke Cage series), Jeff Pinkner (a writer for Lost and Fringe who also worked on The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and the upcoming Dark Tower movie), Joe Robert Cole (Marvel’s Black Panther), Nicole Riegel (writer of the Black List-ed screenplay Dogfight), and Geneva Robertson-Dworet (the upcoming Tomb Raider reboot).

All of these folks will report to Oscar winner Akiva Goldsman, who is overseeing all of these movies as an executive producer. Goldsman also has a similar role on the separate Transformers franchise(s) and its writer’s room, which (so far) is separate from this other Hasbro think tank. This is a lot of brain power for a bunch of movies about action figures. Let’s hope it pays off in better written movies than Hasbro’s produced so far.