Although both G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA and G.I. JOE: RETALIATION certainly made money, they never approached the level of success that the TRANSFORMERS franchise has, and it seems that Hasbro is looking to wipe the slate clean and start over. Hasbro executives Simon Waters and Steve Davis chatted with The LA Times about the future of their various properties, and it was mentioned that they will once again team up with Paramount to reboot the G.I. JOE franchise with a "revamped look intended to appeal to younger audiences," which Waters described as "a more millennial approach."
The world has changed, and I think you’re going to see G.I. Joe changing with it. There’s going to be a much more contemporary approach to the whole franchise, and that will allow us to develop different characters.
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Steve Davis added that they "hope to create a head snap. It’s a different kind of ‘Joe’ — one that still resonates with ‘Joe’ fans but brings in an uninitiated audience and expands the audience internationally and domestically." Hasbro wouldn't say when the next G.I. JOE film would be released, but they did say that they were in the writing phase and, if all goes as planned, the G.I. JOE franchise would eventually welcome other Hasbro properties like ROM, Micronauts, Visionaries and M.A.S.K.
Following the release of G.I. JOE: RETALIATION, Paramount and Hasbro began courting D.J. Caruso to take the helm. Development on the sequel was delayed again and again as they waited for the actor's schedules to align, and Caruso wound up leaving to direct XXX: RETURN OF XANDER CAGE instead. However, he did have a bold plan to relaunch the series by crossing it over with the TRANSFORMERS franchise. Unfortunately, Paramount wasn't quite ready to make that leap at the time.
They’re [Paramount] not ready to do [G.I. Joe meets Transformers] yet. That’s exactly what they should do but they’re not ready to do that because in fact the script that I was developing, the two worlds sort of collided at the end and when they read it they were like, ‘We’re not ready to do this yet.’… They will eventually collide those two worlds and it’s probably when Mr. Bay decides he’s done with Transformers.
Hasbro's next outing, TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT, is set for a June 23, 2017 release.
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