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NEW YORK - Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner said Monday that the toy giant is in active discussions with studio partner Paramount, director Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg about a potential fourth Transformers movie, adding he hopes to have news to share in the next quarter.

Speaking on his company's third-quarter earnings conference call, he also said that Hasbro continues to develop entertainment projects based on its brands - despite some delays and challenges. "We continue to actively develop a number of additional Hasbro films with great partners and writers, including Micronauts, Ouija, Candyland, Risk, Stretch Armstrong, Clue and Monopoly," he said.

Asked about the state of Hasbro's movie plans after Universal previously dropped a planned Ouija film due to budget concerns, Goldner said the partners are still working on Stretch Armstrong and Candyland and have Battleship coming out next year, putting the company in good shape.

On Ouija, he drew a comparison to Walt Disney's recent decision to restructure the budget for The Lone Ranger. That is "the same process we have gone through on the Ouija brand," although at a lower level of spending, he said. Goldner added that the script is in good shape and is being polished now, meaning that the film could be back with a studio shortly.

Meanwhile, a Micronauts script is being written for this project with JJ Abrams at Paramount, and the Monopoly, Risk and Clue scripts are also being worked on, according to the CEO. Plus, other projects are also in the works, even though they have not been announced yet, he added.

Would Hasbro ever produce its own movies? "No, we would not employ…a Marvel strategy," Goldner said.

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Despite the fact that several Hasbro projects once set up at Universal (like Ouija and Clue) have been put into turnaround, the company is still trying to make movies. During a third-quarter earnings call this morning, Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner said today that developing projects Micronauts (with the involvement of J.J. Abrams), Ouija, Candyland, Risk, Stretch Armstrong, Clue, and Monopoly all continue to putter along. The company won’t try to emulate a company like Marvel and form its own studio, but rather continue to partner with others, and the projects that some studios have put into turnaround are being shopped to other studios, which we’ve known for a while.

The biggest news out of the call, however, was spurred by the huge box-office performance of Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Goldner said the company is in talks with Transformers series producer Steven Spielberg and director Michael Bay to make a fourth film in the franchise.

THR reports on the call, and while I don’t think the possibility of a fourth film comes as a surprise to anyone, given the performance of the prior three, this is the first official word on the subject.

Michael Bay has suggested that he would not direct a fourth film, and while Hasbro is in talks with Bay, I expect he’ll remain on the series as a producer while moving on to direct something else. Star Shia LaBeouf has said that he would not return to the franchise, and until a script is turned in it will be too early to make any calls about what other characters and their respective actors may or may not return.

I guess there’s someone who’s happy about this. The third film raked in $1.1 billion worldwide, so it’s probably the accountants at all companies involved that are the most happy. Hasbro’s CEO said that he hopes to have more Transformers 4 news next quarter, and the company will be announcing more film projects in the future, as well.

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