G.I. Joe: Henry Golding Has Started Training for Snake Eyes Spinoff

Crazy Rich Asians and A Simple Favor star Henry Golding is set to play Snake Eyes in an upcoming G.I. Joe spinoff movie -- and it looks like he's already preparing for the role. Late last week, Golding took to Instagram to share several behind-the-scenes photos of him training with a sword, with a snake emoji in the caption.

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A post shared by Henry Golding (@henrygolding) on Sep 5, 2019 at 2:59pm PDT

The character first appeared in the 1980s as a part of the relaunch of G.I. Joe from Hasbro and Marvel Comics, titled G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. Snake Eyes appeared in both G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra in 2009, and G.I. Joe: Retaliation in 2013, with Ray Park playing a masked version of the character. But it sounds like this standalone movie will interpret the character in a new way.

"We are going to the origin story," producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura said in 2018. "As you know in the comic book, you saw his face. And it is, I'll say, the formation of a hero. So you've got to see somebody and it can't be Ray's age, unfortunately."

Robert Schwentke, director of the final two Divergent movies, is set to helm Snake Eyes, with a script from Beauty and the Beast writer Evan Spiliotopoulos. The cast is expected to also include Andrew Koji as Storm Shadow, and Iko Uwais as Hard Master.

While there's no telling exactly what the long-term plan is for Golding's Snake Eyes, some have hoped that the spinoff film could culminate in a full G.I. Joe reboot -- and possibly a crossover with one of Paramount's other franchises, the Transformers.

"I might have been the one that started that fire," Bumblebee star John Cena said in a previous interview. "Don't look into that any more than a fan would be enjoying (it). I just think you have these two storied franchises that, especially because of the way this one was written, damn near rub up against each other. And I think it would be a really cool, in the days of big franchise universes, to see these things collide and coexist on the same screen."

Are you excited to see Henry Golding play Snake Eyes? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Snake Eyes will arrive in theaters on October 16, 2020.