G.I. Joe has seen a resurgence over the past few years in the realms of toys and comics courtesy of Hasbro’s hit G.I. Joe Classified line and Skybound’s Energon Universe, and hopes are that at some point it can do the same in film. 2021’s Snake Eyes film was supposed to be that franchise starter, but it couldn’t break through at the box office. The franchise recently got its next shot at the big screen however after being introduced in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, and with this crossover on the horizon, ComicBook’s Chris Killian asked Snake Eyes director and now Wicked director Jon M. Chu if he would be up for doing another G.I. Joe film in the future.
Chu is clearly focused on making Wicked as good as it can be, and early reviews are hinting that he more than succeeded in that regard. That said, he doesn’t shut the door on a future return.
Videos by ComicBook.com
“G.I Joe, I’m in Wicked world right now. I mean I love the GI Joe World, Snake Eyes, all those people. Henry Golding, I loved his version of Snake Eyes,” Cho said. “Um, you never know. You never know, but right now I still got movie two to go to and I um, my Joe is Fiyero.”
Wicked Part 1 will hit theaters on November 22nd, and like the musical it is adapted from, it will close the curtain with Defying Gravity. That will lead to Wicked Part 2, which is slated to hit theaters on November 21st, 2025. With back-to-back films and all that goes into making the second one as big a hit as many think the first Wicked will be, it’s easy to understand why Chu wants to keep all his focus on Wicked.
[RELATED: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Director Reveals How That Final Scene Shocker Sets Up the Franchise’s Future]
That said, not shutting the door completely means that perhaps another Joe film from Chu might just be a possibility down the line. If it were to happen, Chu would be coming into a very different landscape for the franchise than in 2021. He would now be in the midst of a world that not only has both Transformers and G.I. Joe as a part of it, but also one where they are fully aware of each other’s existence. As we’ve seen in the Energon Universe, that can be a truly tremendous thing, and seeing what Chu could do with that foundational concept could make for something special.
Chu mentioned Golding’s portrayal of Snake Eyes, and while Golding isn’t sure what is going to happen with the franchise, he did share that he expected grand plans from franchise producer Lorenzo Bonaventura. “I mean, Lorenzo di Bonaventura is a busy man and a phenomenal producer, and it’s in safe hands,” Golding said. “Whatever happens, I think it’s going to be a combination of what has come and what is to come. I think Paramount have some grand, grand plans.”
The crossover officially began in Rise of the Beasts, and it’s something that Rise of the Beasts director Steven Caple Jr. couldn’t be more excited about finally bringing to the big screen. “Yeah, it was figuring out a way to use the G.I. Joe technology because they’re known for their tech. I was like, Maybe we don’t have to go through the classic characters like Snake Eyes and Duke and all these other characters. Maybe there’s a way we can use other characters that haven’t been utilized as much,” Caple Jr. said.
“There’s different series and editions and different factions of G.I. Joe as well,” Caple Jr. said. “There’s G.I. Joe: Renegades and different branches of it, too. So I started to play with that, and I pitched versions of it to the studio and the producers. I pitched a direction I wanted to go in and ways to branch out the universe in general. Transformers movies have scope and size, but we’ve been spending a lot of time here on Earth, so I just think there’s more out there. Even in the graphic novels for Transformers, there’s other planets and things like that, and I was like, ‘We’re just thinking too small.’ So, if we’re going to do movie number eight and nine and ten, maybe there’s a way to make this all more expansive and branch out.”
Would you want to see Chu return for another G.I. Joe movie? You can talk all things G.I. Joe and Transformers with me on Threads and Twitter @mattaguilarcb and on Bluesky @knightofoa!
