Danny McBride Is Officially Directing a New ‘G.I. Joe’ Movie, and He’s Bringing His Own Comics Nerd Energy to It

Paramount has spent years trying to figure out how to properly bring ‘G.I. Joe’ back to the big screen, cycling through disappointing box office results and a franchise that never quite found its footing after the early 2010s. Now the studio appears to have finally landed on a filmmaker who actually grew up obsessed with the property, rather than someone simply assigned to another comic book adaptation.

That filmmaker is Danny McBride, the comedy actor and writer best known for creating ‘Eastbound and Down’ and ‘The Righteous Gemstones’. According to TheWrap, McBride has officially signed on to both write and direct the next ‘G.I. Joe’ movie for Paramount, marking his feature directing debut after years of helming episodes of his own television shows.

McBride’s connection to the franchise runs deeper than most directors brought onto major studio IP. Speaking on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast, he explained just how personal this project is for him, admitting the toy line and cartoon meant more to him growing up than almost anything else in pop culture.

“It was definitely the cartoons and the comics. G.I. Joe was my thing when I was a kid. I liked that more than Star Wars, more than anything,” McBride told TheWrap, adding that he still owns his entire childhood collection of figures.

The path to this project started somewhere else entirely. McBride originally pitched Paramount an idea centered on the Dreadnoks, the unruly band of mercenaries and thieves who frequently work for Cobra in the comics. The studio pushed back, telling him the larger franchise needed a proper relaunch first, which sent him back to the drawing board with ‘Righteous Gemstones’ collaborators Jeff Fradley and John Carcieri to build something bigger.

What they landed on is a script McBride describes as a significant tonal departure from his usual comedic work. “It’s not a comedy. It’s kind of suspense and action, and yeah, I think it’s going to be a lot of fun,” he said, emphasizing that the goal was to ground the material rather than turn it into a spoof. The finished script follows Duke leading an ensemble of classic Joes, drawing heavily from Larry Hama’s celebrated Marvel comic run rather than the more sci-fi heavy tone of earlier films.

The setting itself pulls directly from deep franchise lore. McBride confirmed the story takes place in Springfield, a fictional, ordinary looking American town from the comics that is secretly populated entirely by undercover Cobra operatives, giving the film a paranoid, small town thriller backdrop rather than the globe hopping action of previous installments.

Casting has already started moving forward as well, though McBride has kept most of the details close to the chest for now. “We have some pretty interesting people lining up to be in it, too. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but it looks to be like it’s going to be pretty fun,” he teased, leaving fans to speculate about who might eventually fill out the roster of Joes.

The stakes for getting this reboot right are considerable given the franchise’s rocky recent history. The original 2009 film, ‘G.I. Joe, The Rise of Cobra’, pulled in 302 million dollars worldwide but underperformed studio expectations, while 2021’s ‘Snake Eyes, G.I. Joe Origins’ bombed badly, grossing just 40 million dollars globally against a budget estimated between 88 and 110 million dollars. McBride’s take is reportedly a high priority for Paramount CEO David Ellison, with the studio hoping to get it into theaters before its planned ‘Call of Duty’ adaptation.

With the script finished and Paramount fully behind the project, McBride is now targeting a 2027 filming window, putting a live-action theatrical release potentially two to three years away. Given how much passion McBride has clearly poured into cracking this version of the story, fans finally have real reason to believe ‘G.I. Joe’ might get the grounded, comics faithful treatment it has been missing for over a decade.

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