Two Different G.I. Joe Movies From Max Landis and Danny McBride Are in the Works at Paramount

Yo, Joe! Here’s something we didn’t see coming! After outmaneuvering Netflix in the war for Warner Bros, Paramount is ready to help Max Landis get his groove back by having him work on a treatment for the upcoming adaptation of Hasbro’s G.I. Joe. However, Landis isn’t the only one going hard in the paint for the nostalgic toy brand. Reports say that Danny McBride (The Righteous Gemstones, Halloween, Tropic Thunder) will write a second G.I. Joe script. According to several sources, the studio will combine the two treatments into a single project. That said, these reports are unconfirmed, so the exact plan remains unclear.

Navigating the Creative Fog

Confused? It’s not uncommon for a studio to assign two creatives to a big-label project. This approach sometimes happens when studios can’t afford to bungle a high-profile IP, as in the cases of WB’s Tarzan and Universal’s The Mummy reboot. Granted, neither of those examples was a banger, but like Les Claypool always says, they can’t all be zingers.

The aspect of this news that could give Joe fans pause is Paramount’s hiring of Max Landis, the son of John Landis, who made a name for himself by writing the excellent 2012 superhero-adjacent sci-fi thriller Chronicle. As good as Chronicle was, Landis let his freak flag fly when he wrote Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, a two-season series that I positively love. If you’re a Will Smith fan, Landis also wrote Bright for David Ayer, which received mixed reactions.

Landis Emerges From Hollywood Hibernation

Paramount’s G.I. Joe project is a comeback opportunity for Landis, who several years ago was accused of sexual and emotional abuse by multiple women. While no one ever brought charges against Landis, the allegations led CAA and Writ Large to drop him as a client. Projects he was working on died on the vine, and his hibernation from Hollywood began.

May the Best Creator Win

I know a lot of people who would love to see a new G.I. Joe movie succeed, and the thought of Danny McBride also writing a treatment bodes well for this initiative. G.I. Joe is a beloved brand that’s been hit-and-miss on the silver screen. It would be nice for fans to feel 100% about the creative process, so I wonder whose treatment will win out. For now, it’s unclear what Paramount will do with Landis and McBride’s efforts, so stay tuned.

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