'G.I. Joe 3' Was Almost Going To Be A 'Transformers' Crossover
The G.I. Joe franchise makes money, but it doesn't make Michael Bay money. While we'll see Transformers number five this summer, we continue to wait for a G.I. Joe 3, which may have been delayed due to scheduling. Director D.J. Caruso was attached to direct the film, but he moved on to make xXx: Return of Xander Cage. When Caruso was developing the Hasbro film, he had it end with the G.I. Joe and Transformers universes meeting.
Below, learn why Paramount didn't go for the G.I. Joe Transformers crossover.
While speaking with Collider, Caruso told the outlet he had met with the studio and Dwayne Johnson a couple of times to figure out the future of the franchise. The previous G.I. Joe movies have collectively made over $600 million at the box-office, and the sequel was a step up, but as Caruso said about the franchise, "there's something about it that's just not fully, fully clicking."
What's the franchise missing? Perhaps another franchise. Caruso stated Transformers and G.I. Joe will eventually connect, and possibly when Michael Bay is no longer making Transformers movies:
They're not ready to do [G.I. Joe meets Transformers] yet. That's exactly what they should do, but they're not ready to do that because, in fact, the script that I was developing, the two worlds sort of collided at the end, and when they read it they were like, 'We're not ready to do this yet.' They will eventually collide those two worlds, and it's probably when Mr. Bay decides he's done with Transformers.
Caruso added:
It came close [to happening], but I think what the studio was trying to do was reassess it and so now they're back to the drawing board, and we'll be talking again about it. It's a valuable franchise—[it's] not that they didn't get it right, they just wanna really get it right and see if they can push it to the next level.
Paramount has a writers room for G.I. Joe led by Academy Award-winning screenwriter and Winter's Tale director, Akiva Goldsman, who is also the leader of the Transformers writers room. The plan is for the writers room to plot out a few sequels to keep the G.I. Joe series going, but there's no indication of what's next for the franchise, although many Hasbro fans clearly enjoy the idea of Dwayne Johnson going toe-to-toe with an Autobot. The last we heard about the third film was that Aaron Berg was working on the script, but no plot details have ever been revealed.