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Confused about what’s going on with the G.I. Joe movie franchise? Then get in line. Both G.I. Joe and Transformers have gone from being major blockbuster movie franchises of the 2000s to seeing that brand value rapidly decline in the 2010s, after several big missteps from both franchises. However, Transformers has taken a swing at several big reinventions of the franchise, both in live-action (Transformers: Rise of the Beasts) and animation (Transformers One). G.I. Joe, meanwhile, failed to get its fresh start off the ground, with Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe being a massive box office flop in 2021.
For a moment, there was hope that the two franchises could combine their efforts: Rise of the Beasts ended with the lead human character being recruited into G.I. Joe. Three years later, and there is no G.I. Joe/Transformers crossover film, and instead, we get news that both franchises are headed for another round of respective reboots.
Back in February, news broke that Paramount was working on a new G.I. Joe film, with competing script concepts. One script is being written by Max Landis (Chronicle), while the other is being written by Danny McBride (Eastbound and Down, Halloween reboot). It’s been unclear what the purpose of the ‘dueling scripts’ approach is, but we recently found out that Landis’ script (and its radical approach to the material) got passed on. McBride’s script is still in play, however, and now we have he’s shining some light on what inspired it, and what it’s about.
Danny McBride’s G.I. Joe Movie Came From One Big Inspiration
In terms of what is inspiring Danny McBride’s G.I. Joe script? “It was definitely the cartoons and the comics. G.I. Joe was my thing when I was a kid. I liked that more than Star Wars, more than anything. I loved G.I. Joe,” McBride explained to Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “I still have all the characters. I tried to give my G.I. Joe collection to my son, and he wasn’t interested. You know who’s interested? My daughter, who likes robots. That’s who, that’s who plays with Gung-Ho and Snake Eyes in the shower.”
McBride is known for his dark humor on shows like Eastbound and Down, or being a constant collaborator with Judd Apatow and his “Apatow Mafia” of actors. Ironically enough, his take on G.I. Joe will not be rooted in comedy at all. “It grounds G.I. Joe. It’s not a comedy. It’s kind of suspense and action. Yeah, it’s going to be a lot of fun. Whole ensemble.”
The original 1980s G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero animated series was not a comedy. It was “silly” in the sense that Hasbro had to make all kinds of concessions to get the military-action show on the air. That included flamboyant villains like Cobra Commander and Destro (as opposed to depictions of real-world terrorists, rogue nations, and despots), and replacing real-life military weaponry with firearms and artillery that shot colorful lasers more appropriate for cartoon fantasy. But their core, the Joes were indeed an elite military unit and global peacekeeping force, fighting Cobra, a network of terrorists, arms dealers, and mad scientists angling for world domination. The cartoon reflected geopolitics without addressing it directly – a hard act to follow in the 2020s.
Danny McBride’s G.I. Joe Movie Storyline Revealed
As McBride has now revealed, his G.I. Joe movie is based on a classic story from the 1980s Marvel Comics comic series, which was also adapted for the cartoon series. That story is called “A Nice Little Town Like Ours” (or “There’s No Place Like Springfield” in the animated series, S1E54-55). The main plot point of the story is that a Joe member ends up in a town that is seemingly ideal and normal at first, only to slowly but surely learn that it is all a front, and that the entire town is actually a Cobra base, populated by the enemy.
McBride is apparently doing a pretty direct adaptation of G.I. Joe‘s Springfield story, stating that, “You’re following Duke and a group of other Joes. There’s that town in the comics, Springfield, which is a town that’s secretly all Cobra. That is where our film takes place. We have some pretty interesting people lining up to be in it, too. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but it looks like it’s going to be pretty fun.”
Danny McBride’s “elevator pitch” for a G.I. Joe movie certainly has us intrigued, but what about you? Let us know what you want to see in the next G.I. Joe film over on the Forum!
Paramount’s New G.I. Joe Reboot Leaves a $5 Billion Franchise on a Massive Cliffhanger
