Last week, we told you that Transformers 2 – the sequel to In The Valley Of Elah – is moving ahead at 100 miles per hour. It has a release date – June 26, 2009. It has a director, in the returning Michael Bay.
And today it was announced that it has a new writer. Ehren Kruger, who penned Scream 3, Reindeer Games and The Skeleton Key, has managed to persuade Paramount bosses to ignore his CV and bring him on co-writing duties with Transformers old hands, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.
OK, we’re being slightly facetious, and Kruger did write the excellent Arlington Road, the remake of The Ring and, umm, last year’s werewolf classic, Blood And Chocolate, but it’s been a while since he bagged a gig this big.
But the mystery soon resolves itself. The Hollywood Reporter reports, as it’s wont to do, that Kruger has been brought on because Kurtzman and Orci – Bay’s go-to guys for scripts that make you go boom – will be too busy, what with writing JJ Abrams’ Star Trek, producing Eagle Eye, and working with Kruger on a serial killer thriller named Nightlife.
So the trio have previous, and reading between the lines, it seems likely that Kurtzman and Orci were instrumental in hiring Kruger, someone they felt comfortable with. However, Kruger had to first convince Bay and Hasbro president, Brian Goldner, that he knew enough about the Transformers mythology before he got the job. Presumably this involved more than pointing at Optimus Prime and mumbling, ‘isn’t that the big truck guy?’ And, somewhere in Empire’s childish mind, we like to think that it involved three grown men playing with toys for a good hour or two. ‘Vroom’ noises optional.
Anyway, THR also reports that Transformers 2 will see Shia The Beef reprise his role as Sam Witwicky, while Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Don Murphy and Tom DeSanto will reprise their roles as producers, while some newcomer called Steven Spielberg will gain vital experience of executive producing. Optimus Prime is slated to return, but is haggling over the size of his trailer – luckily, that can be connected to him, so they should be ready to roll soon.
No plot details yet, but if anyone from the production is reading, and has made it this far, then we have just one word for you: Dinobots!
Or is that two words? Either way, make it happen.