If you’d asked me yesterday for my thoughts on the Hasbro Cinematic Universe, Hasbro and Paramount’s planned series of feature-length ads films featuring the G.I. Joe, Micronauts, Visionaries, M.A.S.K. (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand), and ROM: SpaceKnight brands, I probably would have been highly dubious. But, at least judging from some of the talent that will be in the Hasbro Cinematic Universe’s writing room, my dubiousness has been scaled back slightly.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Hasbro is focused on making their writer’s room inclusive and female-driven, and has brought on a team of impressively pedigreed creators, many of whom are known for their work in comics or the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In addition to Captain Marvel and Guardians of the Galaxy co-writer Nicole Perlman and Saga and Y: The Last Man’s Brian K. Vaughan, the writing team will include Luke Cage showrunner Cheo Coker; Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay); Lindsey Beer (currently adapting the Kingkiller Chronicles for Lionsgate); Spider-Man: Homecoming writers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein; Black Panther movie writer Joe Robert Cole; Geneva Robertson (a writer on the Tomb Raider project rumored to star Daisy Ridley); Jeff Pinkner (writer of the upcoming The Dark Tower adaptation); and Nicole Riegel, whose script Dogfight is on the Blacklist, Hollywood’s annual survey of coveted screenplays. Akiva Goldman (A Beautiful Mind) will oversee the writers room and executive produce the films. Damn. That’s a lot of cool people in one room.
Hasbro CCO Stephen Davis told THR,
We first and foremost put together a list of writers who we wanted to be in business with and could be the worldbuilders that we needed. But we want to be sure that in the room we have diverse perspectives, diverse backgrounds, and diverse experiences […] Female empowerment is a central theme through a lot of these properties and one of the reasons we wanted diverse voices.
THR also writes that “the properties involved in the universe, such as G.I. Joe and M.A.S.K., have traditionally skewed towards the male segment, but Hasbro wants to broaden the focus on the movies, to make them more inclusive.”
Earlier today we wrote about how Paramount’s films through 2018 will all be directed by men. If Hasbro and Paramount really want to focusing on making this new Cinematic Universe inclusive, I hope that’ll be reflected in their directorial choices as well—and that the studio actually listens to their impressive writing team as they move forward.
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