Eleven years after its last appearance in the cinema, the “GI Joe” franchise will soon be relaunched via a cross-over with “Transformers”. Will the famous super-soldiers created by Hasbro then have a new solo film? The producer responds.
Last April, Paramount announced the official launch of a film that will bring together the Transformers and GI Joe universes. This news was expected since June 2023 and the post-credits scene of Rise of the Beasts.
Super soldiers vs giant robots
In this sequence, the hero, Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos), does a job interview with a man played by Michael Kelly. Noah talks about a recent job in South America, taking care to remain vague about his encounter with Transformers.
His interlocutor then mentions his presence in Peru and the fact that his conversations are indeed listened to. Then he tells him of his desire to recruit him into the mysterious organization, whose name appears on the business card he leaves him: GI Joe.
For the moment, we do not know who will direct this feature film; however, we know the screenwriter hired to write the script. This is Derek Connolly, who notably wrote the screenplays for Jurassic World, Kong Skull Island, Detective Pikachu and Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker.
Interviewed by us as part of the Annecy festival, Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, producer of the GI Joe and Transformers sagas at the cinema, spoke about this future cross-over.
“The truth is we don’t know the story yet. We just hired a writer that we’re going to work with. We have a lot of ideas. So we’re trying to figure out how these two franchises can work together, This is our priority at the moment.”he indicated.
A GI Joe solo film in the works?
The famous producer seems to have ideas regarding these licenses based on Hasbro toys. Indeed, the latter revealed information that should delight fans: “I also want to make a stand-alone GI Joe movie.”he confided.
I also want to make a stand-alone GI Joe movie.
In cinematographic language, a so-called “stand-alone” work means that it has no relationship with the previous feature films in the saga. Lorenzo Di Bonaventura would therefore like to relaunch the GI Joe franchise in the cinema after the two episodes released in 2009 and 2013, The Cobra Awakens and Conspiracy.
There is no doubt that the crossover film with Transformers should bring GI Joe up to date and gauge public enthusiasm before the launch of a solo feature film. Indeed, the Paramount studio, which oversees these franchises, must be cautious after the flop of the spin-off Snake Eyes.
The latter was a dismal failure when it was released in 2021 with only $40 million at the global box office. However, its operations suffered from the crisis linked to the Covid pandemic. In total, the Transformers saga generated 5.3 billion in global revenue over 7 films. The GI Joe trilogy (including Snake Eyes) garnered 718 million greenbacks.
While waiting for the return of GI Joe on the big screen, the Transformers will return in an animated work called The Beginning. It will be released in theaters on October 23, 2024. This film takes place entirely on Cybertron and tells the story of how two brothers in arms, Optimus Prime and Megatron, became sworn enemies, leading to the greatest battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons.
Comments collected by Manon Maroufi at the Annecy 2024 festival
