G.I. Joe is headed back to the big screen, hoping to achieve the kind of blockbuster success its sister franchise, Transformers, has already had. However, the two stalwarts of 1980s toy shelves won’t be going to that promised land together. The Transformers/G.I. Joe crossover movie that was announced back in 2023 will not be moving forward.

The crossover was first seeded in 2023’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. After an adventure with the Autobots and Maximals in Peru, staving off Earth’s destruction by the monster planet Unicron, ex-military tech expert Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) was approached by Agent Burke (Michael Kelly), a recruiter for G.I. Joe. That was to lead into a crossover movie starring Chris Hemsworth as Duke; Hemsworth already had a connection to the franchise, voicing Orion Pax/Optimus Prime in 2024’s Transformers One.

Now, as Danny McBride‘s G.I. Joe movie gears up for action, having recruited Bradley Cooper as Duke, the word has come down that the Transformers/G.I. Joe crossover film is no longer in development at Paramount. It’s the latest setback for the big-screen Transformers franchise, which saw the fifth and final Michael Bay-directed installment, Transformers: The Last Knight, underperform at the box office. Subsequent entries Bumblebee, Rise of the Beasts, and Transformers One have failed to recapture the billion-dollar box office grosses the franchise could once rely on; it’s not clear when it will next grace the big screen.

Have Transformers and G.I. Joe Crossed Over Before?

As both properties are owned by toy giant Hasbro, the giant robots from Cybertron and the ardent foes of Cobra have been frequent bedfellows, although never in live-action. They’ve most frequently crossed over in the realm of comic books, with the original Marvel G.I. Joe and the Transformers crossover series first hitting shelves in 1987. They’ve collided many times since, with crossovers even delving into the stranger aspects of both franchises, including the semi-organic Transformers known as the Pretenders, and the ancient snake-man society of Cobra-La. The current Energon Universe comic books, from Robert Kirkman‘s Skybound, have extensively interwoven the franchises, alongside fellow Hasbro properties M.A.S.K., Rom: Space Knight, and Micronauts. Those comics have been enormously successful, and an animated adaptation is in development.

The Transformers/G.I. Joe crossover movie has been cancelled.

 

via Collider