How To Train Your Dragon's Dean DeBlois to try and make Micronauts a thing again
It’s been years since Paramount tried to replicate the success it has had with the Transformers movies by creating a cinematic universe around other Hasbro toys like Visionaries and M.A.S.K., but now—against all odds—there has once again been movement on a Micronauts movie (Hasbro didn’t create the original Micronauts toys, but it now controls the rights). As reported by Variety, How To Train Your Dragon director Dean DeBlois has signed up to both write and direct the toy line/comic book adaptation, so this is slightly closer to actually happening. Considering that this has been slightly close to actually happening for a decade now, though, it’s still better to be cautiously optimistic than regular optimistic.
As for what Micronauts is, the brand began in the ‘70s as repackaged Japanese robot toys (much like Transformers a decade later), with Marvel enlisting writer Bill Mantlo to put together storylines about the figures for a series of tie-in comics. Marvel eventually lost the Micronauts rights, but it retained control of the original characters and concepts that had been created for the books (which is why the Micronauts’ microscopic Microverse world appeared in the Ant-Man movies). Various other publishers tried to tell their own Micronauts stories, most recently with IDW creating a shared Hasbro universe of its own by connecting the Micronauts, Visionaries, G.I. Joe, Rom The Spaceknight, and Transformers into a single continuity. It worked out fine, but that specific continuity was mostly destroyed by Unicron shortly after that.
There’s no mention of similar high-minded plans in the Variety story, as Paramount and Hasbro have probably learned not to get too far ahead of themselves, but there’s no reason the Micronauts can’t meet Bumblebee if this becomes a huge hit (assuming it really gets made this time).