Tropic Thunder star Danny McBride is set to direct a new G.I. Joe film for Paramount – the first since 2021’s Snake Eyes. Think Barbie, but with big guns and combat fatigues. In its renewed drive to revive as much of its back catalogue as possible, Paramount Pictures is developing another G.I. Joe movie – ... G.I. Joe | Danny McBride set to direct new military action figure adaptation
Tropic Thunder star Danny McBride is set to direct a new G.I. Joe film for Paramount – the first since 2021’s Snake Eyes.
Think Barbie, but with big guns and combat fatigues. In its renewed drive to revive as much of its back catalogue as possible, Paramount Pictures is developing another G.I. Joe movie – and Danny McBride has been confirmed as both its writer and director.
Little else is known about the project at this stage – it doesn’t even have a title – but it’ll be the first film in the series since 2021’s Snake Eyes, directed by Robert Schwentke. It’s also, thankfully, an entirely different project from the one being pitched by disgraced screenwriter Max Landis, news of which emerged earlier this year. Paramount ultimately passed on it.
As pointed out by The Hollywood Reporter, this will be the first feature film from McBride, previously best known as a comedy actor in the likes of Pineapple Express, Tropic Thunder and Your Highness. He has directed a few episodes of the HBO comedy series The Righteous Gemstones, though a G.I. Joe movie would likely be a marked change of pace: the films to date have been full of stunts and explosions.
Based on Hasbro’s line of military action figures, G.I. Joe films traditionally tend to be expensive to make. The first, 2009’s G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra, cost $175m to make. Its 2013 sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, cost somewhere north of $130m. Snake Eyes came in at around $88m or more, but also lost money in cinemas with a box office take of $40m.
This is the slightly odd thing about the G.I. Joe movies: they cost a lot, but in comparison to their budgets, they don’t make a lot: the 2009 and 2013 entries just about managed to double their initial investments. Ordinarily, those kinds of returns are seen as a disappointment; still, the movies have toys, comics and other bits of merchandise to back them up, which is probably why the sequels keep coming.
Previous films have featured some major stars among their ensemble casts of soldiers with wrestler names: Channing Tatum as Duke in G.I. Joe: Rise Of Cobra; Dwayne Johnson as Roadblock in G.I. Joe Retaliation; er, Henry Golding as Snake Eyes in Snake Eyes.
Rumour has it that there’s a role for Bradley Cooper in the new G.I. Joe, with Nexus Point News reporting that he’ll be replacing Chris Hemsworth. It sounds as though Cooper will play Duke, replacing Tatum in those earlier films.
We’ll bring you more on all this as we hear it.
