[6] DeSanto chose to write the treatment from a human point of view to engage the audience,[7] while Murphy wanted it to have a realistic tone, reminiscent of a disaster film.

[6] The treatment featured the Autobots Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Jazz, Prowl, Arcee, Ratchet, Wheeljack, and Bumblebee, and the Decepticons Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, Ravage, Laserbeak, Rumble, Skywarp and Shockwave.

[13] This appealed to Orci and Kurtzman because it conveyed themes of adulthood and responsibility, "the things that a car represents in the United States".

[13] The writers remained involved throughout production, adding additional dialogue for the robots during the sound mixing (although none of this was kept in the final film, which ran fifteen minutes shorter than the initial edit).

[19] Orci and Kurtzman experimented with numerous robots from the franchise, ultimately selecting the characters most popular among the filmmakers to form the final cast.

[27][28] The director considered making a small project in between Transformers and its sequel, but knew "you have your baby and you don't want someone else to take it".

[27] The studio also signed on Ehren Kruger, as he impressed Bay and Hasbro president Brian Goldner with his knowledge of the Transformers mythology,[32] and because he was friends with Orci and Kurtzman.

[27] Screenwriting was interrupted by the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, but to avoid production delays the writers spent two weeks writing a treatment, which they handed in the night before the strike began,[33] and Bay expanded the outline into a sixty-page scriptment,[34] fleshing out the action, adding more jokes,[33] as well as selecting the majority of new characters.

[37] He wanted the focus between the robots and humans "much more evenly balanced",[38] "the stakes [to] be higher", and the science fiction elements more prominent.

[40] Orci added that he wanted to "modulate" the humor more,[41] and felt he managed the more "outrageous" jokes by balancing them with a more serious plot approach to the Transformers' mythology.

[42] Bay concurred that he wanted to please fans by making the tone darker,[43] and that "moms will think its safe enough to bring the kids back out to the movies" despite his trademark sense of humor.

[44][better source needed] Before Transformers was released, producer DeSanto had "a very cool idea" to introduce the Dinobots,[45] while Bay was interested in an aircraft carrier, which was dropped from the 2007 film.

[46] Orci claimed they did not incorporate these characters into Revenge of the Fallen because they could not think of a way to justify the Dinobots' choice of form,[37] and were unable to fit in the aircraft carrier.

Kruger had frequent meetings with Industrial Light & Magic's (ILM) CGI visual effects producers, who suggested plot points such as the scenes in Chernobyl.

[54] On October 1, 2009, Bay revealed that Dark of the Moon had already gone into pre-production, and its planned release was back to its originally intended date of July 1, 2011, rather than 2012.

[57] Bay originally was not much interested in the format as he felt it did not fit his "aggressive style" of filmmaking, but he was convinced after talks with Avatar director James Cameron,[58] who even offered the technical crew from that film.

[63] After Revenge of the Fallen was panned by critics, Bay acknowledged the general flaws of the script, having blamed the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike prior to the film for many problems.

Isabelle Cornish, Nicola Peltz, Gabriella Wilde, and Margaret Qualley were all considered to play Cade's daughter Tessa Yeager, while Luke Grimes, Landon Liboiron, Brenton Thwaites, Jack Reynor, and Hunter Parrish were all considered to play Tessa's race-car-driving boyfriend, Shane Dyson.

[94] In March 2015, Deadline Hollywood reported that Paramount Pictures was in talks with Akiva Goldsman to pitch new ideas for the Transformers franchise's future installments.

The writers' room members include Christina Hodson, Lindsey Beer, Andrew Barrer, and Gabriel Ferrari (Ant-Man), Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead), Art Marcum & Matt Holloway, Zak Penn (Pacific Rim Uprising), Jeff Pinkner (The Amazing Spider-Man 2), Ken Nolan, and Geneva Robertson-Dworet.

Joe and Micronauts properties, Paramount began to negotiate with Art Marcum and Matt Holloway (Iron Man), as well as Ken Nolan (Black Hawk Down), to write the film.

[116] Principal photography began in June 2021, with the official title announced as Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, confirmed to be set after the events of Bumblebee.

[130] In March 2015, Paramount hired Academy Award-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman to oversee and compile a team of writers, to pitch ideas for future films to expand the franchise into a cinematic universe.

A "brain trust" was commissioned to guide the productions of these stories, including Goldsman, Michael Bay, and producers Steven Spielberg and Lorenzo di Bonaventura.

The team of writers who were hired included: Robert Kirkman, Art Marcum, Matt Holloway, Zak Penn, Jeff Pinkner, Andrew Barrer, Gabriel Ferrari, Christina Hodson, Lindsey Anderson Beer, Ken Nolan, Geneva Robertson-Dworet, and Steven DeKnight.

[133] In December 2018, di Bonaventura stated that there will be further films in the series, while also acknowledging that the franchise will make some changes in tone and style due to the success of Bumblebee.

Mark Ryan provides the voice-over work for the role, while the short depicts Megatron's arrival on Earth, as well as Archibald Witwicky's discovery 4 million years later.

With the exception of Bumblebee, common elements of the original film series were held in low esteem by critics,[187] such as the repeated formulaic plots, sophomoric and toilet humor, female character objectification,[188][189] clichéd and controversial characterizations, racial and cultural stereotypes,[190] overuse of MacGuffins, product placement,[191] long running times, and excessive retroactive continuity changes (or retcons).

[166][167] The second film, Revenge of the Fallen, received negative reviews, with criticism of its screenplay and runtime, but praise for its visual effects and sound design.

[178][179] Bumblebee received positive reviews, with praise for its lighter tone, story, visuals, performances, voice acting, direction, action sequences, and faithfulness to the 1980s Transformers show.