Danny McBride Will Direct Paramount's G.I. Joe Reboot

2 Minutes

Think of G.I. Joe and you probably picture action-figure nostalgia, neon-laced toy boxes and blockbuster muscle. Now imagine that childhood obsession steered by Danny McBride. That is the new reality at Paramount.

Hollywood Reporter has confirmed what insiders had been whispering: McBride, already attached as screenwriter, will also direct the next cinematic G.I. Joe. For McBride this marks a first full-length feature director credit, though fans of darkly comic TV will remember his episodes on HBO's The Righteous Gemstones.

Paramount is treating this G.I. Joe reboot as a top priority.

Sources say the studio is actively reshaping the project. A prior script by Max Landis is no longer moving forward. David Ellison is steering a broader playbook to revive major IPs across Paramount's slate, and G.I. Joe sits near the front of that push alongside other reinventions like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Star Trek.

Details remain intentionally scarce. What McBride has revealed, in conversation with Josh Horowitz, gives us a clearer pulse: his script centers on Duke and a group of Joes in Springfield — the Larry Hama–created town now reportedly under Cobra's control. The filmmaker describes a grounded take. Not a riff on comedy. Not a campy reboot. Expect taut action with real stakes.

He didn’t write alone. McBride teamed with his Gemstones collaborators Jeff Fradley and John Carcieri on the draft. And while casting reports — names like Bradley Cooper, Chris Pratt and Walton Goggins — have circulated, Hollywood Reporter didn’t confirm any talent, so treat those as chatter rather than signed deals.

Paramount’s track record with the franchise includes G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009), G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) and the Snake Eyes spin-off (2021). The studio has been quietly plotting a reset for years. If everything moves as planned, production could begin as early as next year.

For now, McBride’s involvement flips an intriguing script into a leadership bet: a writer-director who grew up on these comics taking the wheel of a legacy action brand. It’s a personal reboot, and that alone is enough to make any Joe fan sit up and listen.