Empire Article on Cogman's Voice, Merlin, and the Writers' Room.

In the latest issue of Empire magazine, they interview Transformers: The Last Knight director Michael Bay who discussed the writer's room and also got a little information on the future of the franchise. Most of it we already knew (more or less) but they did confirm two tidbits including the voice of Cogman. You can read scans of the entire article here.

- Part of reason for Transformers writers' room was Bay didn't want to "grind on another script and do another one-off" while producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura said "We were feeling the need for more robust storytelling and weren't feeling we were getting it from the one-off process."

- Writers room was "A candy shot for a Transformers junkie" with TVs playing the movies and cartoons, movie props, and 10,000 pieces of TF art that included two days of "Transformers school" to go over the franchise history both actual and fictional.

- During room meets Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down) latched onto idea set in 5th century and King Arthur while Art Marcum and Matt Holloway (Iron Man) liked idea of Transformers and WWI. The final story is three of the treatments merged together.

- Jim Carter (Downton Abbey), at the recommendation of Holloway, is voicing the "psychotic robot butler" that Spielberg considers "the greatest four-and-a half-foot character since Yoda."

- Santiago Cabrera is also playing Merlin. Film opens with a drunk Merlin during a massive 5th century battle that involves Transformers.

- The Bumblebee movie is based on a treatment by Christina Hodson and directed by Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings) set in the 1980s and will be tonally for younger crown.

- The animated origin myth of the Transformers is still planned as written by Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari (Ant-Man).

- Another treatment under consideration is one set in Ancient Rome (so that means 6/12 treatments potentially leading directly to movies so far).