Screen Rant's Rachel Foertsch recently had the opportunity to sit down with producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who offered an update on the Transformers and G.I. Joe crossover. He confirmed that they are planning a live-action crossover movie, but he itted that "I hesitate using the word crossover" because it has different implications for different people. For the producer himself, the term implies that "the Joes are going to be in the Transformers world and be present."

He described filmmaking as a "balancing act" of finding the right proportion of each major story element, revealing that the new movie is "still in the early process." Read di Bonaventura's full quote below:

Live-action we are going to deliver a G.I. Joe crossover. I hesitate using the word crossover because I think people think different things about what that means. For me, what it means is the Joes are going to be in the Transformers world and be present. I think every movie is sort of a balancing act of "How much do you have this? And in this movie, how funny can we be? How serious? How do you cross that line? How do you hide the villain?" All those sort of balancing things that you're doing. We're still in the early process, in a way, of trying to figure out the balance.

What Lorenzo di Bonaventura’s Comments Mean For The Transformers & G.I. Joe Crossover

The Two Franchises Won't Go Fully Head To Head

While Bonaventura's comments imply that the movie seemingly does not have any major plot details hashed out yet, he has revealed one major element of the new movie. Perhaps inevitably, given the fact that it follows the tease from the Rise of the Beasts ending, it will be a Transformers movie rather than a full-on crossover between the two franchises. It seems that the sequel will be structured more like 2020's Scoob!, which features other Hanna-Barbera characters while still centering the Scooby-Doo gang, rather than more balanced crossover titles such as Freddy vs. Jason or Alien vs. Predator.

This prioritizing of the Transformers franchise over the G.I. Joe franchise could imply that either no characters or very few characters from the previous Joe movies will appear in the project. This makes sense, considering the fact that the franchise has had a scattered continuity, with 2009's G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and its 2013 sequel Retaliation largely featuring different casts and the Henry Golding-led 2021 origin story Snake Eyes likewise primarily following its own path.

Our Take On The Transformers & G.I. Joe Crossover

This Approach May Be Best For Both Franchises

Ultimately, it makes sense for this to be the trajectory of the new Transformers movie. The G.I. Joe franchise is still seeking out an identity after the commercial failure of Snake Eyes, which collapsed with a box office gross of $40.1 million against its roughly $100 million budget. As the Joe franchise explores what works in their own movies, it makes sense for them to slowly begin to rebuild their brand as a smaller part of the universe of the lucrative Rise of the Beasts, allowing interest to grow without jumping into a crossover with both feet.