HarperCollins announced a licensing agreement with Hasbro for film tie-in publishing of Transformers: Dark of the moon. The agreement for English language rights will see HarperCollins launch a range of publishing titles including the junior novel, ultimate guide, and activity book, publishing in June 2011 ahead of the UK film release. And an annual will publish in September 2011 around the DVD release. The deal was concluded by Richard Haines, Brand Development Manager at HarperCollins Children’s Books and to James Walker, Vice President Brand Licensing and Publishing EMEA.

TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON, based on the iconic TRANSFORMERS brand from Hasbro, will be released in UK theatres on the 1st July 2011 by Paramount Pictures. HarperCollins successfully published film tie‐in editions for the previous two TRANSFORMERS films, selling in excess of 300,000 TRANSFORMERS books with a retail value of over 1 million GBP.

The TRANSFORMERS brand has delivered “MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE” fun to legions of kids around the world for more than 25 years with action figures that convert from robot to vehicle and back again. Legions of boys around the world grew up creating fantastic adventures and battles set on both the planet CYBERTRON and Earth that featured the heroic AUTOBOTS — like OPTIMUS PRIME and BUMBLEBEE — clashing with the evil DECEPTICONS, led by MEGATRON. The toys’ popularity reached new levels with the release of the first two live‐action TRANSFORMERS movies, cementing the toys and the brand as one of the hottest global entertainment properties.

James Walker, Vice President Brand Licensing and Publishing EMEA, commented: “HarperCollins has proven once again that they are among the best when it comes delivering an exciting and compelling publishing program based upon our theatrical releases. The TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON books look terrific, and we are confident they will be well received by fans.”

Richard Haines commented on the deal, “TRANSFORMERS is one of the most successful movie franchises of all time and I am delighted that we can work with Hasbro once again on the third movie. The film is sure to be a massive hit this summer and we are looking forward to publishing the official film tie‐in books.”