The news that Paramount is rebooting the G.I. Joe movie franchise raised fans’ eyebrows – and not just because it’s the third attempt Paramount has made at it. According to reports, Chronicle writer Max Landis is working on the script for the new G.I. Joe film; meanwhile, a second G.I. Joe reboot script, written by actor/filmmaker Danny McBride (Halloween), is in development at Paramount, as well. The stated goal is to mine the best elements of both Landis and McBride’s versions and merge them into one film. It’s a bizarre but not unheard of trend in blockbuster filmmaking.
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There’s so much work going into rebooting G.I. Joe, but (so far) we’ve heard no word on what’s being done about another kind of G.I. Joe reboot fans were hyped for; in fact, it’s looking more and more like that project could be dead. If so, it’s a huge misstep by Paramount, that would leave one of its most successful movie franchises ($5.42 billion and counting…) in the lurch.
What About the G.I. Joe & Transformers Crossover Film?
The most relevant thing that the G.I. Joe movie franchise has done in recent years wasn’t even in its own franchise. The 2023 film Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was a soft-reboot of the Transformers franchise, which ended on a cliffhanger twist that was mind-blowing to any kid of the 1980s: Transformers and G.I. Joe being merged into one cinematic universe.
(SPOILERS) When Rise of the Beasts ends, Optimus Prime and the Autobots have saved planet Earth from the Terrorcons and their leader, Scourge (Peter Dinklage), with help from human Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos). Noah is a tech-savvy ex-soldier, so when US intelligence organizations investigate the Terrorcon invasion, they flag Noah as a candidate for greater service. The final scene of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts sees Noah attend a supposed security job interview, only to find he is being recruited by the clandestine military organization, G.I. Joe.
Longtime Transformers and G.I. Joe movie producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura has been talking up the crossover for years now, previously telling ComicBook that “We are going to deliver on the promise we made. We’ve talked about it since the beginning of the franchise because the fans have been like, ‘Come on, when you are going to do Joe?!’”
Derek Connelly (Kong: Skull Island, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker) was tapped to write the crossover film in 2024; since then, nothing significant has happened with it.
Could A Transformers & G.I. Joe Movie Still Happen?
At this point, it seems like studios are slowing down on the idea of trying to blow every IP up into a cinematic universe. That’s to say: once it seemed like we were getting several different kinds of Transformers movies, a G.I. Joe reboot, and a crossover film; now, it feels like there’s a scaled-down, ‘back to basics’ approach being taken to revitalizing these franchises. So if two prominent writers are both focused on G.I. Joe, maybe that’s going to be Paramount’s major focus for right now.
…On the other hand? Transformers: Rise of the Beasts did make $441.7 million at the worldwide box office, against a budget of approximately $200 milllion. Small profit margins, but still a great bit of proof that audiences want to see more Transformers films, just maybe not in the same continuity as the five films from director Michael Bay.
There is the slim possibility of hope, though: Maybe this G.I. Joe reboot McBride and Landis are working on includes theTransformers crossover? Initial reports are that Landis and McBride are focused on G.I. Joe, but both of them seem qualified to be the writer of that kind of crossover event.
Logistically, this doesn’t have to be heavy-handed kind of event. There is a new precendent being set over at 20th Century Studios with its Alien and Predator franchises: Director Dan Trachtenberg has been seamlessly weaving the two into the same shared universe space, culminating with the recent film Predator: Badlands making a Predator its protagonist, and a synth android from the Alien franchise as his supporting character. No one called it a crossover film, and yet, the two worlds are now merged. And the future of both Predator and Alien are looking really good.
Paramount doesn’t even have to overthing this: there’s already a blueprint. For years now, Image Comics and Skybound have been playing in the sandbox of the “Energon Universe,” wherein several different Transformers and G.I. Joe comic book titles all exist in the same shared universe. The EU has a darker and more violent sci-fi/horror bend to it, and fans have been loving it. So why not take that success from the comic page and adapt it for the big screen? In the modern era, the line between military combat and futuristic technology is non-existent. So unless the G.I. Reboot film is an ’80s period piece, the modern look of the Joe force wouldn’t be all that different from a Transformers movie – so why fight it?
No firm developmental or release date timeline for either a G.I. Joe Reboot or the next Transformers movie. Tell us what you want to see over at the ComicBook Forum!
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