As most fans already know, G.I. Joe and Snake Eyes work better on TV

The response to Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins once again proves why the future of the franchise is in TV.

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins is out in theaters and has been met with the same tepid response as previous live actions films. Both fans and critics have responded with a collective “meh” and the box office numbers are not looking good at all.

Anyone who has been a fan of G.I. Joe for a long time knows exactly why. This franchise was designed for TV and comic books. To be precise, it was designed for episodic storytelling and needs more time to play a narrative out than a single movie can give it.

The history of G.I. Joe

The modern incarnation of G.I. Joe debuted in 1982 as part of a three-pronged marketing strategy. It was a toy line, a comic book series, and an animated series. Ultimately, the comics and cartoons were intended to be toy commercials but the stories took on lives of their own.

Over the years, the original Marvel Comics run has become legendary, largely because of the work of Larry Hama. He wrote the vast majority of the comics, creating the characters, stories, and mythology that have informed everything that has come since then.

The same can be said of the animated series, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. It also added into that same mythology, albeit in its own way. The comics and the cartoons could not have been more tonally different from each other.

But that doesn’t change the fact that each of them were, and are, huge cultural touchstones for fans. Together with the incredibly popular toy line, they built a brand that still exists today and keeps finding its way back to the media landscape.

Making G.I. Joe live-action

Attempts to translate this success into live-action films have been going on for years. Frankly, a movie about a group of elite soldiers with special skills taking on a worldwide cabal of terrorists seems like a slamdunk. That’s pretty much what the Fast and Furious franchise is at this point.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was released in 2009 with a group of Joes including the fan-favorite Snake Eyes. This was followed up by G.I. Joe: Retaliation in 2013, with Snake Eyes being the only returning main character from the first film.

Thanks to the worldwide box office numbers, neither movie could be called a legit bomb. At the same time, neither was a raging success. Fans weren’t impressed with them, though, particularly The Rise of Cobra. It seemed to have been made by people who knew nothing about G.I. Joe.

Snake Eyes was the first attempt at a solo G.I. Joe film. While critics have rightfully praised the casting and the performances, particularly Henry Golding in the titular role, box office numbers have been terrible. Considering pandemic issues, it’s well on its way to being considered a bomb.

Snake Eyes took a wrong turn

As a franchise, G.I. Joe continues to struggle at the box office. The answer to the producers’ problems honestly could not be more simple and it lies in streaming services. G.I. Joe has a long, successful history of episodic storytelling. Go back to that.

Given how well Disney Plus has done with live-action series set in the MCU and in the Star Wars universe, the potential for G.I. Joe in a similar medium is extremely obvious. In fact, the franchise would be better served as a TV series than a movie.

A great example is actually Snake Eyes. If the story from that film was fleshed out and given the time to breathe over eight episodes in a streaming series, it could have been quite epic. Instead, fans got a rushed movie that was designed to set up more entries in the franchise.

The landscape of modern media has changed drastically in a short period of time. That means that there are more options to tell a story now than ever before. It’s time that the creative minds behind G.I. Joe and Snake Eyes take a step back and look at all of them before moving forward.

Would you like to see the G.I. franchise spawn its own TV series? Let us know in the comments below!