Travis Knight is moving on from stop animation to try his hand at live action as the Laika CEO has been tapped to direct the “Transformers” spinoff “Bumblebee.”
The movie would mark his live-action directorial debut after helming the Oscar-nominated “Kubo and the Two Strings” for Laika last year. Paramount was clearly eyeing someone with an animated background as execs also met with “Lego Batman” director Chris McKay. The studio had no comment. While plot details are still unknown, the story will focus on the popular character who has appeared in all of Michael Bay’s “Transformers” films.
Bay, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Brian Goldner, Stephen Davis and Steven Spielberg are producing. Christina Hodson penned the script after joining the “Transformers” writers’ room last year, where the studio began fleshing out ideas for other movies contained in the “Transformers” universe, but not necessarily set along the franchise timeline.
Knight, who’s the son of Nike CEO Phil Knight, has helped create a force in the animation world with his Laika Studios, which delivered such classic stop-animation pics as “Kubo and the Two Strings,” “ParaNorman,” “The Boxtrolls,” and “Coraline.”
