Merry Christmas from Beast Wars' Garry Chalk and David Kaye

 Merry Christmas to all. The tradition continues as Beast Wars voice actors Garry Chalk (Optimus Primal) and David Kaye (Megatron) release their Christmas messages. The first is from Chalk with parody lyrics by Candice N. Santora and Chalk. He is currently undergoing treatment for Stage 4 Hodgkin's Lymphoma so sending him best wishes on his fight.  The jingles continue as Kaye does his own parody as he proposes a Christmas truce.

Transformers One Script Available

IndieWire has made the final script of Transformers One available to read. Written by Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer, and Gabriel Ferrari, its an interesting way to find out how a movie script works and might see some differences between the script and what made it to screen. How much will be far less since how animated films are developed is different than live action films. 

Barrer and Ferrari said "From the moment we pitched the idea, our goal was to tell a story about the death of a best friendship that would have worked just as well if it were about humans. It was always ‘Stand by Me’ with Transformers. That touchstone helped us discover a whole new tone for the franchise. Every aspect of the storytelling and world-building boiled down to an effort to explore the humanity of these sentient robots in the first movie since 1986 to truly star them in the lead roles.”

Hasbro Tapping Out of Movie Business

Hasbro's CEO Chris Cocks has revealed that Hasbro is completely tapping out of making movies. With the commercial failure of Transformers One and under performance of Rise of the Beasts and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, the company is no longer going to co-finance films. “We want to reach fans where they want to play, and increasingly that is through digital expressions of their favorite brands,” Cocks said to Bloomberg. Studios can still make movies and TV shows on Hasbro properties, but it will now be licensed instead of having the cost partially taken on by Hasbro.

The money instead will be shifted to invest in video games with upcoming projects that include Exodus from Baldur's Gate veterans, D&D, and G.I. Joe video games in the works. Plan is also to expand Magic: The Gathering Arena video game with the Commander format. “What makes Magic so successful is what will drive Hasbro’s future success. It’s grounded in play, " Cocks said.

Under the previous CEO Brian Goldner, Hasbro bet big on Hollywood co-financing films based on their properties. By co-financing, lets say a movie costs $200 million. That would more or less get split between the studio and Hasbro. The co-financing deal made it so Paramount was more willing to gamble on then unproven properties and continue to gamble on future films even as the rate of return declined.