The "Transformers" franchise is expanding now to its fifth film, which will bring back Michael Bay as director and Mark Wahlberg as the star. According to Deadline, the details of the film have not been finalized, but they will be soon. The film will start production next summer.

It is already clear that the next movie will help set up a larger "Transformers" franchise universe, including previous films, as well as spin-offs and other projects.

The studio brought several writers together on a soundstage in Hollywood, paid them all seven figures, and gave them the freedom to flesh out several spec scripts to pitch to Bay and Steven Spielberg. The results of this little experiment are expected to fill out the new canon the studio is creating for the Hasbro toy line of characters.

The ideas generated through the exercise include the plot of the next film, as well as material for a prequel film, which is expected to go back to the story's beginning on the planet Cybertron, which is where all the good and bad robots are from. The prequel film is expected to be the basis for all future films in the franchise.

An impressive list of writers was brought together to conceptualize this new canon for the universe, including Ken Nolan ("Black Hawk Down"), Christina Hodson and Lindsey Beer, Barrer & Ferrari, "The Walking Dead" creator Robert Kirkman, "Iron Man" writers Art Marcum & Matt Holloway, Zak Penn ("Pacific Rim 2"), Jeff Pinkner ("Amazing Spider-Man 2" and "Lost"), "Spartacus" creator and "Daredevil" showrunner Steven DeKnight and Geneva Robertson-Dworet.

The last film in the franchise, "Transformers: Age of Extinction," grossed only $245 million in the U.S., but it grossed $1.1 billion worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. With two films in the franchise pulling in over $1 billion at the box office, series profits are enough to warrant expanding the universe and making several more movies.