While Danny McBride is best known for his roles in big and small screen comedies, he’s revealed his co-authored G.I. Joe reboot is in the works at Paramount.
McBride has a ‘G.I. Joe’ deep cut take for new film
McBride, star of Pineapple Express and This Is the End, has a strong list of writing credits alongside his memorable comedic performances.
He’s the series creator of Eastbound & Down, Vice Principals and The Righteous Gemstones, and has screenwriting credits on the recently rebooted Halloween film franchise, which kickstarted in 2018.
Now, he’s co-written a new G.I. Joe screenplay which is careening towards production, a revelation made on the Happy Sad Confused podcast hosted by Josh Horowitz.
I’m really fired up about the script. Paramount seems fired up about it. So hopefully we’re shooting it next year,” McBride said.
McBride revealed that childhood inspiration motivated his penmanship on the script.
“G.I. Joe was my thing when I was a kid. More than Star Wars, more than anything. Like I loved G.I. Joe. I still have all the characters.
“I had an idea for a Dreadnoks movie… and I went to Paramount and pitched it, and they were like, well, the franchise kind of needs to be launched, so we can’t come out with a Dreadnoks movie. Would you have an angle for G.I. Joe proper? And I was like, hell yeah.”
McBride then went away with his The Righteous Gemstones co-writers Jeff Fradley and John Carcieri.
“We cracked something that we really love a lot,” he said.
“Weirdly, it grounds G.I. Joe. It’s not a comedy. It’s like kind of suspense and action, and yeah, I think it’s going to be a lot of fun,” McBride explained.
McBride further detailed the screenplay’s premise, which delves into G.I. Joe lore.
“You’re following Duke and a group of other Joes,” he said.
“There’s that town in the comic, Springfield, which is a town that’s secretly all Cobra. So that is where our film takes place.”
Actors lining up for new G.I. Joe film
The previous G.I. Joe film franchise cast Channing Tatum as group leader Duke in 2009’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, but he made just a brief appearance in the 2013 sequel, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which made way for Dwayne Johnson to take the lead as Roadblock.
Henry Golding then took the titular role in the 2021 prequel Snake Eyes, which unpicked the origins of the famous Joe character.
As for McBride’s franchise do-over, several unnamed stars are allegedly lined up.
“We have some pretty interesting people lining up to be in it, too,” McBride revealed.
“I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but it looks to be like it’s going to be pretty fun.”
What is ‘G.I. Joe’?
G.I. Joe began its life as a Hasbro military action figure in the mid-1960s and spawned into a series of comic book strips and animated cartoons.
The cartoons and comics were hugely popular in the 1980s, intersecting with McBride’s fond memory from childhood.
The three aforementioned live-action films had mixed success at the box office, with the core G.I. Joe entries both grossing over $300 million in cinemas worldwide.
Snake Eyes, meanwhile, was a flop, grossing just $34.6 million worldwide after a reported production budget of $88 million.
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