Danny McBride has offered up the first details on his new G.I. Joe movie, which he confirms is not a comedy.
On the Happy, Sad, Confused podcast, McBride was asked about the status of his G.I. Joe film. The writer confirmed he has a completed script that Paramount appears to be happy with, there are a number of “interesting” people who are in talks to star in the film, and they’re hoping to shoot it next year.
“[It follows] Duke and a group of other Joes. […] There’s a town called Springfield that is secretly all Cobra,” he said. “That is where our film takes place.”
Although McBride has roots in comedy, he confirmed that this will be a suspenseful action movie. He noted that he has a deep love for the G.I. Joe franchise and actually pitched a Dreadnoks movie to Paramount, but they asked if he would do a proper G.I. Joe movie to revive the IP once more.
McBride previously co-wrote the most recent trilogy of Halloween films that were directed by his longtime collaborator David Gordon Green. Although the trilogy’s last two entries were divisive, the 2018 reboot was highly successful and well-liked. On the same podcast, McBride noted that both he and Green wanted to make a crowd-pleasing slasher film with the 2018 film, but when it came time to do the sequels, they realized they had more freedom to make something more unique and experimental. While it didn’t work for everyone, McBride was under no illusion that the films would be unanimously liked.
“Green led the charge on where those movies went, and I knew that some of those ideas would be divisive, but I liked that he was doing what he wanted to do,” McBride said. “Even [John] Carpenter talked about how he struggled with the second Halloween and how, creatively, it was difficult to challenge that. I think anyone approaching a slasher film is going to inevitably fall into the same stuff of once the engine gets going, it does get kind of repetitive. And so, I think Green was really trying to push all those movies into a chance for him not to repeat himself, but to do something just totally different.”
Whether the new G.I. Joe film tries to do a dramatic subversion remains to be seen, but from McBride’s comments, it seems to be playing it pretty straight. The last live-action Transformers movie teased a crossover with G.I. Joe as well, but that has yet to come to fruition. It’s unclear if McBride’s movie will set the stage for such an event, but it sounds like maybe we could see this film as soon as 2028 if all goes smoothly.
The last proper G.I. Joe movie, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, was released in 2013 and was received poorly by both fans and critics. A Snake Eyes film was also released in 2021, but was a box office bomb and failed to resonate
Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN’s news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.
