All eyes are on Paramount-Skydance after the seismic news on Thursday that it won out in its bid over Netflix to buy Warner Bros. Discovery. So what does the studio have in the works on the film side? Among the IP that Paramount is looking to mine is “G.I. Joe,” and a curious name is lined up to submit a draft for a new film: Max Landis.
Landis, the son of “The Blues Brothers” director John Landis, is the writer of the found footage movie “Chronicle” and the Will Smith fantasy movie “Bright,” but is better known for having been accused of emotional and sexual abuse back in 2019, derailing his career. Eight women accused Landis in a report in The Daily Beast that led to him being dropped by his management company, to being disavowed by one of his film’s directors, and to another project falling apart.
Sources told IndieWire that Landis is writing a treatment for a “G.I. Joe” film at the studio, which last hit the screen back in 2021 with the spinoff action movie “Snake Eyes” starring Henry Golding. But Landis isn’t the only one trying to find a way into the IP. “The Righteous Gemstones” star Danny McBride is also in talks to write a completely separate treatment based on the “G.I. Joe” characters.
Both projects are merely treatments in deep development at this stage, and while there’s the possibility it makes just one of the scripts into a film or even both of them, it’s just as likely Paramount ends up making neither.
The first two live-action “G.I. Joe” movies starring Channing Tatum from 2009 and 2013 each surpassed $300 million at the box office and were respectable hits for Paramount, but “Snake Eyes” suffered from the pandemic and made just $40 million worldwide.
At one point, there was talk that “Transformers” could do a crossover film with “G.I. Joe,” but that never materialized beyond a post-credits scene, even though Lorenzo di Bonaventura is a producer on both franchises and Paramount-Skydance will certainly be looking to revitalize the “Transformers” IP as well.
The Hollywood Reporter first reported that Landis was writing the treatment.
