Thanks to Mirage for reporting on our message board, that Sci-Fi Wire has an article regarding the Transformers movie where they quote varity as reporting the that the rumoured release date of June 26th, is not an official date. What's interesting is that they report that Michael Bay has currently not signed onboard, where as previous articles on sites such as LA times reported he had

Transformers 2 Gets 2009 Date

Paramount and DreamWorks are holding the date of June 26, 2009, for Transformers 2, with Michael Bay expected to return to direct the sequel, Variety reported.

The first Transformers, starring Shia LaBeouf and based on the toy robot line, has grossed nearly $700 million worldwide, giving DreamWorks its first live-action franchise, the trade paper reported.

Steven Spielberg, who took an executive-producer credit on Transformers, was closely involved with the film, including bringing Bay aboard to direct and LaBeouf to star. He's expected to be involved in the sequel.

Bay has not yet signed a deal to helm the follow-up but is in the final stages of negotiation. With Bay's involvement, LaBeouf is expected to return as well.

LaBeouf stars alongside Harrison Ford in Spielberg's upcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which opens May 22, 2008.

DreamWorks and Par are hoping to at least begin production on the Transformers sequel before a possible strike, even if they have to finish after it.

The BBC has an interesting article on viewing figures in the UK. The report shows that the Simpsons out performed Transformers (which was the exact opposite of what Paramount Pictures UK had expected). You can see the original report here or read it below.

The summer weather has contributed to the season's best UK box office numbers in 40 years, according to figures.

More than 50m cinema visits were made in June to August - a 27% increase on the same period in 2006.

The wettest summer since records began in 1914 had contributed to the "sensational" figures, said the Film Distributors' Association (FDA).

The biggest attractions over the summer were the latest outings from Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean.

'Broad population'

The Simpsons big screen outing took third place, with Shrek The Third and Spider-Man 3 in fourth and fifth.

Transformers, The Bourne Ultimatum, Die Hard 4.0, Ocean's Thirteen and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer made up the bottom half of the top 10.

Foreign language films also performed well at the UK box office over the summer, with Germany's The Lives of Others, France's Tell No One and La Vie En Rose and Hindi language film Partner attracting more than one million admissions each.

A "very broad population" made visits to the cinema in the last three months, according to the FDA.

The organisation's chief executive, Mark Batey, called the summer's box office figures "sensational" and "unprecedented".

"It's thrilling that so many people have enjoyed the uniquely immersive, high quality experience of the cinema this summer," he added.

FatGuys's Blog has some nice in and out of packaging pictures of the TakaraTomy Shareholders exclusive toy trucks featuring Transformers Movie images.

Here's what FatGuy had to say:-

These 2 trucks are gifts for TT's shareholders. I like the idea that Takara's characters on Tomy's product line (Transformers on Tomica) and Tomy's (licensed) characters on Takara's product line (Pokemon on Choro-Q). TT shows to its shareholders that Tomy and Takara are really gaining synergy after the merging.

As a collectible itself, this gift set is also valuable on its own. The packaging is good, and the paint job is nice. Really worth to get 1 set if you have the chance.

Seibertron.com are running a news story confirming that Skylynx will be the 2007 New Year Transformers release by Takara. They credit Snakas for the news, although no links to where Snakas mentions this are given. They do however state later in the same story that no confirmed date is set for Sky Lynx?

So will the toy get a release at the end of the year? Will e-Hobby run their regular New Year exclusive toy, and if so would it be a re-coloured Sky Lynx? For the moment only time will tell.

We're continuing our theme of updating and adding new Transformers Armada toy galleries today bringing you 9 new toy galleries and 7 updated ones, totaling 441 new images. The new additions are

1. Transformers Armada Blurr
2. Transformers Armada Incinerator
3. Transformers Armada Rollbar
4. Transformers Armada Skywarp
5. Transformers Armada Thunderclash
6. Transformers Armada Thundercracker
7. Transformers Armada Zapmaster
8. Transformers Armada Standard Optimus Prime
9. Transformers Armada Over-run

The updated galleries are of :-

1. Transformers Armada Hot Shot
2. Transformers Armada Jolt
3. Transformers Armada Red Alert
4. Transformers Armada Longarm
5. Transformers Armada Scavenger
6. Transformers Aramda Smokescreen
7. Transformers Armada Liftor
   

Thanks to Talk Transformers for providing the first image of the Transformers Music Label Convoy toy (in box), showing that the toy has finally been released.

The white IPOD playing Convoy had suffered delays earlier in the year.

You can see the image here.

Simon has type up another long article on his blog, which you can see here. We've reproduced the text below, in case you find the formatting on his blog a little hard to read.

Beast Wars United

Not, as you might think, a football (soccer) team in a league composed of Transformers generations (Cyberteron City, RiD Rovers et al), but a unified Beast Wars universe, one that amalgamates the US Beast Wars TV series/toy line with its Japanese counterparts (BW II and BW Neo) and, for good measure, the convention/store exclusive toy characters.

That was what we (myself and bwtf.com’s Ben Yee) set out to do when (over a year ago now) we began to craft a four-issue sourcebook/profile series for Transformers Beast Wars, the first issue of which is available next week. No easy task, as there are elements of the Japanese shows that just aren’t easily compatible with the US series.

What we did first was compose a timeline, a fairly loose ‘what came when’ that included the likes of BWII, Neo, the Pax Cybertronia, the ‘Great Upgrade’ and so forth. Some slight revisionary tinkering here and there was necessary, of course, but we finally had the framework into which everything (and everybody) could be slotted. Next, we set about detailing the planetary hierarchy, the ‘who does what’ on Cybertron in the BW era.

Some of the characters like Lio Convoy, Big Convoy and Magmatron had already been assigned roles/positions in the first IDW Beast Wars series, The Gathering, but we needed to flesh those entities and bodies out. Who, for example, sat on the (Bi-partate) Committee for State Affairs (mentioned in The Gathering)? What was the full roll call for The Pack (of which Razorbeast was a member)? Where did the TriPredacus Council and the Magnaboss trio fit into all this? And so on. Should alliances or roles already established in BWII and Neo be honored or scrapped? Lots of problem solving needed to be done before we so much as started on the character profiles themselves.

Then, it was down mostly to Ben to come up a definitive list of BW characters, taking in everything from Botcon exclusives to McDonalds Happy Meal exclusives. Where characters hadn’t reached their Fox Kids Transmetal form (in the TV show) he extrapolated. We then carved up the character list and set to work. Ben probably wrote 75 per cent of the entries (compared to my somewhat cherry-picked 25 per cent), with me acting as overall editor/guardian of the ‘house style.’ It was exhaustive work, and (when it came to the repaints, effectively two identical characters issued with a different colour scheme and name in Japan) demanding, making the pairs as different as possible in terms of their profiles and powers. Where one existed, we used extant tech specs as a guideline, in other cases we started from scratch. Some characters we retooled almost entirely to fit the new, unified TV show/IDW universe.

Over the course of the four issues, no less than 162 characters are profiled, and (in issue #4) there’s an extensive glossary. Entries vary from one to two to three pages, depending on number of alt. forms or variations. Main characters, such as Optimus Primal and Megatron get the full three-page treatment, even including early (unused in the TV show) forms such as bat Primal and croc Megatron. It took a good chunk of time to write all four issues, and longer still for IDW editorial to commission the illustrations and compile the books. But here we are at last.

Beast Wars Sourcebook #1 hits the stores on Oct 3rd (US) and Oct 4th (UK).

For more information on this and all IDW’s Transformers titles, check out their website here.

ComingSoon.net is reporting that Paramount Pictures has now set a release date of June 26, 2009 Transformers 2. We were the first Transformers fansite to pick up on the news which Nelson (Shoot for the Edit) broke concerning the June 2009 release date.

This would also tie in nicely with BotCon 2009 (if it were to stay on a similar time scale as this years event).

Thanks to Snakas for pointing out that the Bearbricks website has been updated with wave two of it's Transformers Movie toys. This time Bumblebee and Barricade get the Bearbrick treatment.

You can see the page, images, here.

TFWorld2005 Boards Member Omnius has found the Transformers Movie Scout Assortment at the Darlington Woolworths. The toys had previously been sighted in Europe and was exclusively available at Target in the US.

You can see his post here

Following on from this morning's Transformers toy image gallery updates, focusing on the Transformers Armada line, we've got 3 more updates galleries for you and an additional 6 brand new galleries for you to look at.

The new Transformers toy image gallery updates are:-

1. Generation One - Galaxy Shuttle - update
2. Metalforce Optimus Prime - update
3. Metalforce Metallic Optimus Prime - update
4. Robots in Disguise - Dreadwind - new gallery
5. Robots in Disguise - Smokejumper - new gallery
6. Superlink - SL Convoy - new gallery
7. Superlink - Roadbuster - new gallery
8. Micron Legend - Super Mode Grap - new gallery
9. Micron Legend - Spark Lift - new gallery

In an article regarding the problems between Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks founders David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg, LA Times report that both Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay have both signed up for Transformers 2 which is currently scheduled for release in the summer of 2009.

You can read the original article here, credit to Nelson from ShootForTheEdit for the original report.

IDW head-honcho Chris Ryall has posted an update over on the IDW forums regarding the Transformers release since certain titles they produce have been slipping.

"Been a bit busy around here, but don't worry, a lot is happening and a lot of books are coming. We're even sending Megatron 4 to print next week! That has been the most delayed book ever for us, but it's almost done now...

Here's what's coming minus the Megatron in-store date, which I don't have yet (but it'll be early October, since we're printing it in Canada, not Korea):

Sept. 26:
TF Devastation #1
TF: Beast Wars: The Ascending #1
TF Sourcebook #1 (no, really!)

Oct. 3:
TF Magazine #3
TF UK Dinobots #2

Oct. 10:
Art of Transformers HC
TF: Devastation #2

Oct. 17:
TF: Beast Wars: The Ascending #2
TF Sourcebook #2

Oct. 24:
TF UK Dinobots #3

The TF Premiere Edition HC (a friggin' huge book, 500+ pages) and the Ramjet Spotlight are at the printer's now, too. We'll be finalizing Megatron 4 next week, and Dev 3, and I've already gotten some covers and pages from the NEXT Spotlight, which I should probably announce soon..."