In the aftermath of Snakes Eyes underperformance, is G.I. Joe 3 or other spinoffs likely to happen? Hasbro may have struck gold turning Transformers into a live-action franchise, but the road to making the G.I. Joe movies work has been far bumpier. On the surface, G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra should have spawned a major series; it was helmed by The Mummy's Stephen Sommers and fronted by a great cast, including Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Sienna Miller. However, the film was only a lukewarm success and received awful reviews; in the years since both Tatum and Miller expressed regret over being part of it.
Rise Of Cobra got the G.I. Joe movie series off to a shaky start, so the sequel Retaliation was a soft reboot. It only brought back a few characters, killed off Tatum's Duke and made Dwayne Johnson's Roadblock the lead. However, it was only a mild improvement on the original critically and commercially. The studio hit the reboot switch fully for 2021's Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins, which cast Henry Golding as the titular ninja. The film was expected to launch a sequel, a new G.I. Joe movie and even a Lady Jaye series. In light of Snakes Eyes' abysmal financial reception, is a G.I. Joe 3 likely to happen?
G.I. Joe 3 Is In Active Development
While part of Snake Eyes' performance could be attributed to being released amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems doubtful it would have kicked off a new chapter for the G.I. Joe franchise anyway. Its critical reception was on par with the prior movies, while Golding felt miscast in the lead. While a Snake Eyes 2 is very unlikely, franchise producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura confirmed in a Collider interview that G.I. Joe 3 is in the works. In a similar tactic to Snake Eyes, the next outing could also focus on a key member of the team.
How G.I. Joe 3 Will Connect To The Rest Of The Franchise (Including Snake Eyes)
In the aforementioned May 2023 interview, di Bonaventura revealed the current plan for G.I. Joe 3 would return to a Lady Jaye TV pilot script that was developed with Amazon, but didn't happen. Says the producer: "We are in a lot of conversations about what to do with it as a film, and so I would have to say, most likely you're going to see that come to fruition. How soon is always impossible to say." While he didn't cite a timeline for when a third film, he did underline that "For a long time, there were no active conversations. There's a lot going on right now."
The project probably won't have anything to do with a G.I. Joe 3 script that was developed in the aftermath of Retribution either. G.I. Joe: Ever Vigilant was to have featured the return of Johnson and possibly Bruce Willis as General Colton, with D.J. Caruso set to direct. At one point in the threequel's development, it would have even tied into the Transformers franchise. It sounds like plans for the next film aren't set in stone, but it likely won't tie into either the first two movies or the continuity established in Snake Eyes. Perhaps a Lady Jaye movie is the clean slate the franchise really needs.
Source: Collider
