Danny McBride's G.I. Joe movie finally has a date: October 20, 2028. Paramount announced it on November 6 as part of a release-schedule shuffle, and it's the clearest sign yet that the studio is serious about a reboot that, on paper, sounds like a very strange fit for a toy franchise.
What's confirmed
Per TheWrap and Dark Horizons, the untitled film will be released wide on October 20, 2028. Bradley Cooper is set to play Duke, the Joes' leader. McBride directs and co-writes with Jeff Fradley and John Carcieri. Lorenzo di Bonaventura produces with Mark Vahradian and Zev Foreman for Hasbro Entertainment. TheWrap describes it as a reimagining of the franchise, and plot details are under wraps.
The Springfield idea
The interesting part is where McBride wants to set it. Dark Horizons says he has described the film as a suspense thriller set in Springfield, a town secretly controlled by the terrorist group Cobra. That's a nod to a storyline from the G.I. Joe comics, in which a small American town is quietly taken over from the inside. The A.V. Club also reports he pitched a movie built around the Dreadnoks, the franchise's biker-gang weirdos, and that he's a fan of its stranger corners.
That's a smart angle for a property that hasn't landed with audiences. Flickering Myth counts this as the fourth live-action G.I. Joe film, after The Rise of Cobra (2009), Retaliation (2013) and Snake Eyes (2021). A paranoid small-town thriller is a long way from the globe-hopping toy-box spectacle of the first two.
Where this leaves the Transformers crossover
Dark Horizons says the earlier plans for a G.I. Joe and Transformers crossover have been scrapped. Flickering Myth is softer, saying the crossover now appears to be on hold because of this film and Michael Bay's announced return to Transformers. Either way, Joe is going it alone for now.
Still unclear
There's no title, no word on the rest of the cast, and no confirmation of whether McBride will appear on screen. The date is also two years out, so plenty can move. If you want to see what McBride does when he's handed a loud, strange world, Eastbound & Down (Affiliate) is a good place to start.
Photo: Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0