GI Joe Is Getting A Television Series
A new G.I. Joe series is coming and is just another announcement for the franchise which is in full reboot mode right now.
This article is more than 2 years old
What is old is new again. Those seem to forever be the marching orders when it comes to projects on the big and small screen. If one is out of ideas, there is plenty of stuff to recycle from the past. Sometimes it is worth it though with the original stories worthy of getting a second (or third, or fourth) try. That is the case with G.I. Joe getting a new animated series according to MovieWeb. We could be seeing this crew in our lives quite a bit over the next few years.
The news comes out of their reporting from a Hasbro licensing presentation in Brazil that had one of the topics around a G.I. Joe animated series. The information was pretty sparse in terms of overall plot and story without any indication of where it would actually air. But there was word that there are already multiple seasons planned for 2022 and 2023. It’s likely this new series features a bigger cast of characters, concentrating more on the original group we came to know and love in the 1980s.
It makes sense that Hasbro would be in an active development mode on another G.I. Joe series considering the likely resurgence in popularity the franchise could see over the next few years. There is another push to get a series of movies out about characters under the G.I. Joe Origins tag, going back to show the run-up for how specific names got involved in the fight against COBRA. The first is Snake Eyes which hits theaters this week on July 23rd.
According to some basic plot points, Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins will detail the titular character’s time before joining G.I. Joe and will star Henry Golding as the ninja. There are other iconic characters from the original stories involved as well with Storm Shadow, Baroness, and Scarlett all making appearances. Apparently, there are nods to the larger COBRA group as well and that is where some of the next stories will go. But they are using Snake Eyes as that launch point. From the first trailers, this might be just the reboot the franchise needed.
G.I. Joe, the action figure, came out back in the 1960s but reached near-peak popularity in the 1980s with the reconfigured action hero sets and the animated series as well. It ran for a few seasons and helped spawn a massive toy line. There have been multiple animated series over the years which have focused on the larger universe of these two factions duking it out. It’s likely this latest series follows a similar path, establishing the full complement of characters.
As for the movies, G.I. Joe has seen a couple of attempts about a decade ago with 2009s Rise of Cobra starring Channing Tatum and Marlon Wayans among others. The sequel Retaliation added Bruce Willis as General Joe and Dwayne Johnson as Roadblock. It earned over $375 million at the box office but bombed with critics at 29% on Rotten Tomatoes. Here’s to hoping this next movie reboot plus a cool animated series bring G.I. Joe to the heights it deserves because there are plenty of stories in here.
