Snake Eyes and the future of the G.I. Joe franchise
With the return of the G.I. Joe film series on the horizon through the release of Snake Eyes: G.I. Origins, what is next for the franchise?
Throughout the last 20 years, Hollywood has seen a more unprecedented amount of comic book story sourcing for live action entertainment than its entire industry history. Since the successes of films like The Dark Knight and Iron Man, fans of comics in the film industry have raced home to create pitches and stories that would be financially gainful for studios (including the acquisition of its popular fan base).
However, we have also had some other non-Marvel and non-DC successes from comics to the big screen. Thus in 2009, thanks to Paramount Pictures, Channing Tatum headed the first G.I. Joe film The Rise of Cobra. This ultimately led to a sequel in 2013, GI Joe: Retaliation, which was led by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Bruce Willis.
After the films grossed a combined $678 million at the box office and the fact that The Rock had entered the fold, we thought a third film would follow. Unfortunately, 2013 was the last year that G.I. Joe would see the live-action market for a while. Why is this? Why keep us waiting for so long?
Why has it taken so long for a new G.I. Joe movie?
When this writer thinks back on it, personally, he can say that he enjoyed the previous movies. The special effects were impressive and the frozen missile base was amazing – and so was the underwater base in its sequel.
In the first movie, the arc revolved more around Duke entering the Joes’ fold and realizing that a great threat was on the horizon. Cobra was merely a landscape to the story where Duke would realize his lifelong lover “The Baroness” was alive but that she chose her role in Cobra because of Duke’s failure to save her brother. Those that watched the first movie now know that The Doctor was actually Duke’s former brother-in-law, now the new Cobra Commander.
The sequel saw more of a focus on Snake Eyes as they half-told his origin story. That, however, is clearly going to be at the center of the new movie Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins. That being said, we must go back to the comic world of visual storytelling to answer my earlier question.
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Hollywood has this habit where they take a great activity idea and turn it into an action movie. Explosions here and there with fancy CGI and VFX to tantalize spectators. But the “Ooos” and “Ahhhs” is quickly growing out of style and now people are questioning “Why?” is it that they watch such things? Stories are a fickle thing to all who indulge for whatever their reasons, but we admire its quality… not just its content.
Paramount has undoubtedly seen this change first-hand in the seven years since the release of Retaliation and have put together a plan. If you’ve been following the online chatter, you’ll probably know that there are two planned future projects for the G.I. Joe franchise. Though Snake Eyes is on the horizon, there is another project slated for an unknown timeline titled G.I. Joe: Ever Vigilant.
It was reported back in May by Variety that Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse were in talks to write the fourth film. You can see a clear amount of effort being out into the future of the G.I. Joes’ on-screen presence with some very noteworthy names being brought in to create the story. It’s looking like the strategy here is to reinvent the G.I. Joes’ story, while also explaining where the members have been since being disbanded (which was never really reversed even when the imposter President was discovered to be Zartan). This is reinforced if you refer to the story logline currently in place underneath the G.I. Joe: Ever Vigilant IMDb page:
"“The GI Joe force is reinstated for a confrontation when the Cobra terrorists acquire a deadly new weapon.”"
If this is indeed the case, it sounds like an ingenious plan. I mean, look at how Pixar started off their sequel in The Incredibles 2. It was risky to have such a sequel after so long but they progressed the beginning of the story with so much understanding and such a meaningful pace that it made up for the fact that the studio took so long to release the sequel to begin with.