Entertainment
New GI Joe Script Makes No Sense, Rejected By Paramount
By Jennifer Asencio
| Published
Max Landis’s attempt to return to Hollywood isn’t going too well. The director submitted a script for consideration for a new movie based on Hasbro’s G.I. Joe franchise to co-producer Paramount. It was announced on March 14, 2026, that they were turning it down.
The proposed script would have been about a world where the evil organization CORBA has succeeded in its plans for domination, and the G.I. Joe organization is considered a “conspiracy theory,” or even an underground group of rebels. Max seemed very proud of the subversiveness of his idea, but Hasbro and Paramount rejected it for creative reasons.
Landis’ Exile From Hollywood
Max is the son of John Landis, best known for classics like Animal House, Three Amigos, Coming to America, and Michael Jackson’s cinematic music video, Thriller. With such big shoes to fill, Max’s success has only been moderate in comparison, with writing credits for Chronicle, the Netflix fantasy Bright, and Victor Frankenstein. He also penned 18 episodes of a series based on Douglas Adams’ novel, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.
He has largely been out of the entertainment industry due to allegations of sexual misconduct from 2016. He’s written a few projects but has mostly remained out of the spotlight until news broke that he submitted a pitch for the proposed G.I. Joe project. Among his future projects, according to IMDB, is a proposed rewrite of his father’s werewolf comedy, An American Werewolf in London. Given his treatment for the G.I. Joe movie, it’s concerning to imagine how he’s going to mangle his father’s legacy.
Danny McBride Might Save The Day
Other ideas for a G.I. Joe movie are being considered jointly by Hasbro and Paramount, including a script from Danny McBride of Pineapple Express and The Righteous Gemstones fame. Paramount wants to expand on this franchise, although the studio hasn’t been very good at that lately: Starfleet Academy, their latest Star Trek failure, is probably not airing its second season. This may mean they are extra-cautious about what script they choose for the iconic and patriotic franchise.
The general sentiment among fans is that they’re glad this script never got off the ground. Reducing the Joes to shadowy guerrillas is an idea more like a bad fanfiction than a story about the “real American hero” that was so beloved in the 80s. The general sentiment is that a G.I. Joe movie should be like the cartoon from our childhood.
Since Danny McBride’s name has been mentioned over the other scripts, it seems likely they are taking him seriously. This may be a good thing, as McBride excels at being a big kid and is of the right age that he would have been a genuine fan of the show. Whether his concept wins the pitch or not, whoever manages to capture the spirit of the Hasbro franchise will probably be rewarded at the box office, while attempts to change the franchise too much might reject fans the way Starfleet Academy and The Acolyte did to their fanbases.
Regardless, it’s obvious that Max Landis was not that fan. Stay tuned, because eventually we’ll know whose script Paramount and Hasbro pick, and knowing is half the battle.