Having recently hired Steven Sommers (Van Helsing, The Mummy) to direct, Paramount Pictures has announced that screenwriter Stuart Beattie (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Collateral, 30 Days of Night) has been brought on to bang out a script for its live-action movie based on the Hasbro’s G.I. Joe toyline and animated series. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount has put the film on the fast track to a 2009 release due to the impending talent strike that threatens to throw a major wrench in the Hollywood pipe works.
The big-screen incarnation of G.I. Joe will apparently draw most of its inspiration from the 1982 Saturday morning cartoon series, which still has legions of fans. In the show, an elite group of soldiers with an arsenal of high-tech weapons, gadgets and vehicles takes on an evil terrorist organization known as Cobra in epic skirmishes that span the globe. The adventures were also printed in a series of comic books from Marvel Comics.
Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Hasbro’s Brian Goldner are producing G.I. Joe, which promises to fill the screen with plenty of visual effects, much like DreamWorks/Paramount’s Transformers did. Other ’80s animated TV series making their way to theaters include Voltron at 20th Century Fox and He-Man and Thunder Cats at Warner Bros.
