With its G.I. Joe franchise having spent several years up in the air, Paramount has finally decided on a path forward by choosing Danny McBride to direct a reboot of the classic Hasbro toy line into a new live-action feature.
Paramount had been decided between two different G.I. Joe projects with one of them coming from McBride after he wrote a script for a potential film. The new G.I. Joe will mark McBride’s directorial debut for a feature. The film will follow the adventures of the elite global military unit G.I. Joe as they fight against the evil terrorist organization known as Cobra and its leader Cobra Commander.
The news follows in the wake of McBride’s recent comments about his script, where he said it would take inspiration from the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero comic book storyline and setting of Springfield: “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.”
G.I. Joewas first created in the 1960s as a toy doll line aimed as the boys’ answer toBarbie for Hasbro. It was greatly expanded in the 1980s with new smaller toyline that spawned the animated series G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero which most iterations of the franchise have followed since. Four G.I. Joe films have been made to date with an animated feature that tied into the original series, 2009’s G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and its 2013 sequel G.I. Joe: Retaliation, and the reboot Snakes Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins.
Paramount has also been trying to develop a crossover between the franchise and Transformers with a tease included in the final scene of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. With the future of Transformers also up in the air, we will have to see if McBride’s G.I. Joe will may lead to a live-action crossover in the future. In the meantime, Hasbro Entertainment is developing the adult animated series Energon Universe based upon Skybound’s Transformers, G.I. Joe and other comics in their interconnected titles.
Originally published July 16, 2026. Updated October 2, 2026.
