The recruitment drive is on for Danny McBride‘s big-screen take on G.I. Joe, the classic action figure, comic book, and cartoon franchise. The daring, highly-trained special mission force has just found its leader, in the form of a star who’s worked with McBride before. He’ll star as Duke, one of the most iconic characters in the franchise.

Duke, alias Conrad Hauser, is the field leader of G.I. Joe. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Hauser is one of the most capable soldiers in the Armed Forces, but has consistently refused any position that might take him out of the field. His half-brother, Falcon, a member of the Green Berets, has also been a member of G.I. Joe. Originally voiced by veteran voice actor Michael Bell on the G.I. Joe cartoon, Duke was played by Channing Tatum in two theatrical live-action G.I. Joe movies, although he perished early on in the second. He was also slated to be played by Chris Hemsworth in a film that would cross over G.I. Joe with the Transformers, but it is no longer in development.

Now, Bradley Cooper will step into the army boots of Duke for McBride‘s movie, which he will both write and direct. Cooper previously worked with McBride on the fourth-season premiere of The Righteous Gemstones; in that episode, “Prelude,” Cooper played Elijah Gmestone, the Civil War-era ancestor of the modern-day family of megachurch preachers the show normally revolved around. It’s also not Cooper‘s first turn with toymaker Hasbro, who own G.I. Joe: he had a memorable cameo as a halfling in 2023’s Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Cooper can next be seen in an Ocean’s 11 prequel that he will write, star in, and direct, and in Ally, a new animated film from Bong Joon Ho.

What Do We Know About Danny McBride’s ‘G.I. Joe’ Movie?

McBride is a longtime fan of the franchise; he previously pitched a movie focusing on the Dreadnoks, a band of uncouth swamp-dwelling mercenaries that often comes into conflict with the Joes, before agreeing to helm a Joe movie proper. The movie will center around G.I. Joe, a special mission force that’s deployed to oppose Cobra, a subversive organization with designs on world domination. McBride, in an interview earlier this year, outlined the film’s plot as such: “You’re following Duke and a group of other Joes…there’s that town in the comics, Springfield, which is a town that’s secretly all Cobra, and so that is where our film takes place.” The film will be produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Mark Vahradian, and Zev Foreman for Hasbro Entertainment, as part of the company’s ongoing attempts to bring their iconic brands to the screen.

G.I. Joe is in development. 

via Collider