Paramount’s plans to bring the Autobots and G.I. Joe together on the big screen have officially fallen apart.
The studio’s long-planned Transformers and G.I. Joe crossover is no longer in development, despite being directly teased at the end of 2023’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.
A screenshot from the G.I. Joe Movies – Paramount+
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Confirmation arrived somewhat quietly in a new report from Deadline about Paramount’s separate G.I. Joe reboot. Bradley Cooper is set to play Duke in the film, which will mark The Righteous Gemstones creator Danny McBride’s feature directorial debut.
More importantly for the future of Hasbro’s franchises, the report notes that McBride’s movie has been “uncoupled” from the previously planned Transformers crossover, which is no longer in development.
That effectively brings an end to a shared-universe plan Paramount spent several years building toward.
Rise of the Beasts Set Up the Crossover
Paramount hardly kept its crossover ambitions secret.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts concluded with Anthony Ramos’ Noah Diaz meeting Agent Burke, played by Michael Kelly. Burke handed Noah a business card revealing that he worked for G.I. Joe, establishing the two franchises within the same cinematic universe.
Paramount formally announced the crossover at CinemaCon in 2024, and the project continued moving forward afterward.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts movie poster (2023), Paramount Pictures
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The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Jurassic World and Kong: Skull Island screenwriter Derek Connolly had been hired to write the screenplay. Chris Hemsworth was also attached to star, despite having just provided the voice of Optimus Prime in the animated Transformers One.
Hemsworth told Entertainment Weekly that he had no idea who he would play in the live-action film. He only knew that producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura had approached him about the project while he was recording Transformers One.
“I was like, ‘Am I going to be, like, talking to myself? Am I still going to play Optimus Prime and then switch over to G.I. Joe?’” Hemsworth joked. “Do I get paid twice? What’s happening here? That’s the important question.”
Paramount Had Big Plans for the Crossover
The idea was hardly unprecedented. G.I. Joe and the Transformers have crossed paths numerous times in comics since Marvel published the original G.I. Joe and the Transformers miniseries in the 1980s. This project, however, would have marked the first time they appeared together in film or television.
Di Bonaventura also made it clear in 2024 that Paramount intended to follow through on the tease.
“We will absolutely have Joes in a Transformers movie,” he told GameSpot. “There is no question of that.”
At the time, di Bonaventura suggested the project might not be a traditional crossover evenly divided between the two franchises. Instead, the challenge was determining how heavily G.I. Joe characters should factor into a Transformers story without shortchanging either property.
Those plans have now been abandoned.
G.I. Joe Is Going Back Out on Its Own
Instead of sharing the screen with Optimus Prime and the Autobots, G.I. Joe will receive another standalone reboot.
Cooper will take over the role of Duke, previously played by Channing Tatum in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and G.I. Joe: Retaliation. McBride is directing from a screenplay he wrote with his Righteous Gemstones collaborators Jeff Fradley and John Carcieri.
G.I. Joe Title Card – Hasbro
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That does not necessarily mean the two franchises will never cross over, but Paramount’s decision makes some sense in light of its changing circumstances.
As part of the agreement clearing Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros., the combined company committed to releasing 30 movies annually. Keeping G.I. Joe and Transformers separate potentially gives the studio two theatrical franchises to draw from rather than combining them into a single movie.
Whether Transformers receives a similar reboot or heads in another direction remains to be seen.
For fans, however, the immediate takeaway is what will not be happening anytime soon. Three years after Rise of the Beasts seemingly promised that G.I. Joe was about to become part of the Transformers franchise’s future, Paramount is walking away from that setup and sending the two Hasbro properties back down separate paths.
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