While a sequel to this year’s sequel/reboot G.I. Joe: Retaliation was announced before that film’s opening weekend was even officially over, it looks like Paramount is only just now getting around to hiring a director for G.I. Joe 3. A new report has surfaced announcing that Retaliation helmer Jon M. Chu is making a deal with Paramount and MGM to return and direct the next installment of the franchise. Chu—whose previous filmography was filled with dance-centric pics like Step Up 3D and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never—successfully retooled the G.I. Joe franchise with Retaliation, despite the fact that the film was postponed at the last minute in order to needlessly post-convert the pic to 3D. Hit the jump for more on the follow-up.
Per Deadline, Paramount is meeting with four different writers and will shortly assign one of them to script G.I. Joe 3, which one assumes means that Retaliation scribes Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick won't be returning. The studio likely wants the film to hit theaters sooner rather than later, and so it’s unclear if Chu still plans on moving forward with his Masters of the Universe remake first or if Joe will take priority. It's still early days on the sequel, but Dwayne Johnson previously told us that they would be using the 3D platform "in better ways" in G.I. Joe 3. Moreover, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura has promised that the third film would include more ninjas:
“We haven’t spent any time considering what the next movie is. There are elements we’re really excited about. I’d like to do more ninja story. That’s really fun, and I think the mythology will support some really cool things. You know, I was a really huge fan of the TV show Combat! as a kid, and there’s an intimacy the show had because their budget demanded it—it’s always a bunch of guys and they’re going down a ditch. I’d like us to do some of that kind of stuff where you’re really on an intimate level. ‘Surprising’ isn’t the right word, but ‘gratifying’ how Dwayne and Channing’s ‘home scenes’, if you would, they’re not buddy scenes but they translated that way somehow. So they’re basic character scenes, and they’re domesticated scenes. How well that played in the scale of what we’re trying to do. I’d like to see more of that.”
What about you, dear readers? What do you want to see from the next G.I. Joe film? Are you happy that Chu is returning? Sound off in the comments below.