It’s no secret that the G.I. Joe franchise hasn’t had the best of luck when it comes to movies. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins were all critical disappointments, and the latter movie bombed especially hard at the box office. Now Paramount Pictures is looking to reboot the property once again, and it reportedly is taking an unexpected approach for more than one reason to make this happen.
According to THR, Max Landis, who’s written movies like Chronicle and Bright, has been selected to pen a treatment for a new G.I. Joe movie. Landis, the son of director John Landis, has been largely been absent from Hollywood in recent years after being accused of sexual and emotional abuse by several women in the late 2010s. He last wrote a screenplay for 2020’s Shadow in the Cloud, and while the Chloë Grace Moretz-led movie ended up being completely rewritten by Roseanne Liang, he retained his writer credit.
But Landis’ hiring isn’t the only unusual move being made on the new G.I. Joe take. The article mentions that Paramount is also having The Righteous Gemstones’ Danny McBride write a separate script for the reboot. Some sources who spoke to THR claim that the studio intends to take Landis and McBride’s scripts and blend them into one, though a studio source stated that their scripts are for different projects.
Max Landis isn’t the only controversial creative whom Paramount has hired in recent months. In the aftermath of Skydance’s acquisition of the studio, Brett Ratner, who has also been accused of sexual misconduct and recently directed Amazon MGM’s Melania documentary, was announced to be working on Rush Hour 4. Whether or not writing a new G.I. Joe movie will be the first step to him making a Hollywood comeback remains to be seen, assuming it gets greenlighted.
Which brings me back to the two reported G.I. Joe scripts. Granted, it’s not uncommon for studios to take this approach with tentpole pictures, but usually just one script is chosen to be turned into the actual movie. To merge two scripts together is significantly rarer, and I frankly worry that taking this course of action with Landis and McBride’s scripts could result in the G.I. Joe reboot coming off as disjointed at the very least.
Still, one can’t fault Paramount for wanting to revisit G.I. Joe given that the Hasbro-owned franchise remains popular more than 60 years after the toy line launched. The last major update on this front came in 2023 when it was revealed at the end of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts that the robots in disguise live in the same universe as the secret military organization. However, nearly three years later, there hasn’t been any movement on a Transformers/G.I. Joe crossover movie, though the two properties are now expected to co-mingle in an adult animated series called Energon Universe.
Stay tuned to CinemaBlend for more updates on the future of the G.I. Joe film series. You’re welcome to stream the previous movies with your Paramount+ subscription, or read about how Paramount just scored a major victory against Netflix to acquire Warner Bros.
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