You can't open the industry trade papers these days without reading about Hollywood's hottest and possibly hardest working writer/producers signing yet another new deal for a new project.

There's no ink on the contracts yet, but the writing team of Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are in negotiations to pen the sequel to "Transformers," according to Thursday's Hollywood Reporter. The project will team the pair with writer Ehren Kruger ("The Ring").

With the actors and the production team virtually intact from the first movie, including director Michael Bay and executive producer Steven Spielberg, the deal is being put on the fast track to avoid a potential talent strike. Kurtzman and Orci are busy indeed, as they are still involved with the new J.J. Abrams-directed "Star Trek" movie, as well as a DreamWorks project titled "Nightlife" (with Kruger).

Also announced yesterday was a new one-hour comedy-drama by Abrams called Boundaries, to air on ABC (the Lost and Alias network). It will be produced by Bad Robot through Abrams' deal with Warner Bros. Television. Boundaries, according to Hollywood Reporter, centers on a failing cable-access psychologist who rediscovers her true purpose when she is forced to take a job as a mobile notary. The show will be written and produced by Jill Soloway, who earned three Emmy nominations for Six Feet Under.

And since Abrams, Kurtzman and Orci still don't have nearly enough to do, the Fox network is going to help them out by committing to a new series from all three. Announced just this morning was their new TV project called Fringe, an X-Files type show focusing on three characters: a young female FBI agent, a research scientist who's been institutionalized in a mental hospital, and that scientist's estranged son. The unlikely trio will investigate a spreading series of paranormal phenomena.

Fringe is about "relatable people in extraordinary situations," Abrams told Daily Variety. "The show is definitely a nod to 'Altered States' and 'Scanners' and that whole Michael Crichton/Robin Cook world of medicine and science." And of course, Fox likes the resemblance to The X-Files, which the network has been trying to develop a successor to for years.

"It does the stuff my favorite TV shows and movies do, which is to combine genres that shouldn't fit together," he continued. "It's definitely meant to scare the hell out of you, but it's also meant to make you laugh... It pushes all the buttons of things we loved from our childhood."

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Fringe was born and written between production meetings on the "Star Trek" movie.

Like Boundaries, Fringe will be produced by Bad Robot through the deal with Warner Bros. Television. Casting on the two-hour pilot will begin shortly, and the two-hour pilot is slated for production before the end of the year. This will overlap the production of "Star Trek," but Abrams will hire another director and showrunner for Fringe.

Bryan Burk, who is a producer on "Star Trek XI," will also serve as an executive producer on both Boundaries and Fringe.

This latest deal means that Abrams now has relationships with ABC/Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount and 20th Century Fox. If he can place projects at NBC/Universal and Sony, he'll pretty much have the whole town covered, and his plan for world domination will be well on its way, mwahahahaha...