Have you been looking around wondering whatever happened to GI Joe 3? The film just sort of vanished from Paramount's radar after GI Joe: Retaliation, but there were a few meager attempts to get it going. One of the last gasp efforts saw XXX: Return of Xander Cage director DJ Caruso attached, and he revealed to Collider something kind of incredible. According to him, the third GI Joe movie would have been a crossover with Paramount's Transformers franchise, but the studio got cold feet...
“…they’re 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 [Michael] Bay decides he’s done with Transformers."
He does think they will eventually get around to it, especially since they already have an expanded universe of titles on the way...
“It came close but I think what the studio was trying to do was reassess it and so now they’re back to the drawing board, and we’ll be talking again about it. It’s a valuable franchise—[it’s] not that they didn’t get it right, they just wanna really get it right and see if they can push it to the next level."
At least Paramount is taking its time and not just looking for the instant cash grab. Transformers is already huge, making about $1B a pop, but GI Joe could use the boost and the studio's priority has to be building up both properties. With Micronauts, MASK, ROM, and Visionaries also in the works we may see all of them cross over at some point.
