How do you follow up a breakout turn in a critically acclaimed Oscar-winning movie? In Hollywood these days, it seems like you have two options: Marvel movie or Transformers. I exaggerate – there are a few more options than that – but it does feel like the fate for every actor in a critical darling to cross over into tentpole territory. Dominique Fishback, who was a force to behold in the Oscar-winning Judas and the Black Messiah, is making one such crossover as the latest actor to join the new Transformers movie cast.

Deadline reports that Dominique Fishback, who starred as Deborah Johnson in Judas and the Black Messiah, is in final negotiations to star in the new Transformers movie for Paramount. If she joins the cast of the latest Transformers installment, which Steven Caple Jr. is directing, she’ll star opposite In the Heights actor Anthony Ramos.

Fishback made a splash in her turn as Deborah Johnson, the writer, activist, and fiancée to Fred Hampton, the assassinated Black Panther Party chairman played by Daniel Kaluuya to Oscar-winning success. Fishback earned a BAFTA nod for her performance, with many critics singling her out as the breakout star of the film. Already, the offers are pouring in. She’s set to co-star with Samuel L. Jackson in the Apple series The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, which shoots later this year, and she is also starring in Subverted which she will executive produce with Jamie Foxx and Datari Turner. Now she’s probably getting her biggest paycheck yet with Transformers, the latest installment in the billion-dollar franchise.

The yet-untitled Transformers is actually one of two scripts in development under Paramount and Hasbro, with Darnell Metayer and Josh Peters writing this film from a script by Joby Harold. The other script in development is by Zodiac writer James Vanderbilt, and will reportedly be a reboot of Transformers: Beast Wars. Also in the works is another Transformers movie directed by Angel Manuel Soto and penned by Marco Ramirez.

This Transformers movie led by Caple and Harold has been chosen as the next installment in the franchise originally spearheaded by director Michael Bay. Ramos is the lead of the film, and reportedly screen-tested with a handful of women before Fishback won out, per Deadline. The movie reunites Ramos and Fishback, who are close friends since working together on a play back in college.

Skydance is co-financing and executive producing the new Transformers movie. New Republic Pictures are also co-financing partners.

The post New ‘Transformers’ Movie Casts ‘Judas and the Black Messiah’ Breakout Dominique Fishback appeared first on /Film.