The Los Angeles Times is reporting on the comings and goings of Hollywood moguls Stephen Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen with their company Dreamworks SKG and dropped this nugget of info:

Even if he leaves, Spielberg will remain the crown jewel of the acquisition [of Dreamworks by Viacom] for many years. He and director Michael Bay have signed on to make “Transformers 2,” scheduled to hit theaters in the summer of 2009.

Bay has been iffy on whether there’s time to make the movie before the strike, and producer Don Murphy has flatly stated as much.
Strike or not, they all want to see the Autobots back, and so this movie will get made. If there’s no strike in June 2008, you can expect Transformers in 2009.

CYBERTRON VS CYBERDENE

I understand there’s a “Transformers/Terminator” comic book series on the way. Will it be Dynamite, will it be IDW?

Will it be as bad as “Transformers/Avengers?” No.

Sounds alright to me. Hopefully they’ll get a good writer attached, I nominate Greg Pak.

With the DVD release of Transformers right around the corner and the movie still yet to see its September 21st IMAX release, you’d think Dreamworks, Paramount, and Hasbro would be eager to talk about making a sequel to their $600+ Million movie. Well producer Don Murphy is talking…

For those of you most anxious about TRANSFORMERS 2, the silence you hear is primarily because people are fretting about a presumed strike in June 2008. Will it happen? I don’t know- does the public care about strikes anymore in this day and age? What do rich people have to strike about anyway? I don’t have any side here (you hear about the writers and the Producers but that actually means the STUDIOS) I just think stopping work is kind of pointless. But since no one wants to be filming IF a strike happens, everything needs to be done filming by the end of May 2008. So this is affecting the lack of news about Transformers 2 at least for now. Stay tuned.

So the good news is they’re not going to try to rush something, but the bad news is we’ll have to wait until the whole thing gets sorted out. I don’t know enough about the Hollywood strike to tell you what might happen, but I don’t think anyone actually wants to stop working so I’m sure they’ll find a resolution before we run out of movies.

On the bright side, check out this: Taiwanese Guy Turns his Mobile into Fully-Functioning Transformer-Phone!

Cinematical has the details for the DVD release on October 16.

Basically there will be a regular edition DVD, a special 2-disc DVD edition and then a special 2 disc HD-DVD edition.

Boxart for the sets has been posted here.

I have copy and pasted the press release after the jump for the full details.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

HobbyLink Japan has posted an image in their listing for forthcoming Masterpiece Skywarp of all three original seekers as Masterpiece figures, including a previously unheard of Masterpiece Thundercracker in the top right corner.

If this comes to fruition, count me in. I definitely want all three original seekers. Bring on the coneheads next!

I’m not normally wild about Transformers busts, but this one tempts me a little bit. The DST busts have been stepping it up lately.

Viacom has mentioned in this press release that Paramount and Dreamworks are now exclusively backing HD DVD over the competing Blu-Ray format. In recent months as many studios who had been backing HD DVD began releasing movies in both formats it’s a bit unusual to see studios taking the side that’s having less economic success.

Studios affected by this deal are Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Animation SKG, DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films. The first features to be released exclusively to HD DVD will be Shrek the 3rd, Blades of Glory and Transformers.

No doubt this will mean great things for HD DVD as this format war really comes down to who gets the better exclusive titles. Naturally some biased people are getting their panties in a bunch over the whole debacle.

Coupling this with the resent increase in the number of weekly HD DVD titles released it certainly looks like the early lead Blu-Ray had in this format war may not have been the quick end it once seemed to be.

You can see them here. They are limited to 250 each and can be purchased individually or as a set.

  

I am not usually into the idea of busts for Transformers, but I have to admit these look extremely nice. Particularly with the wings coming off the base. I am highly tempted by this set. The fact that they are so limited is unfortunate.