We’ve already heard quite about all the changes they’ve made to The GI JOE team for the movie, and while they’re cold to fans who grew up with the team, its something Hollywood feels they need to do and we can’t change it.
Thankfully, Cobra The Enemy seems to be making the transition to the screen seemlessly. IESB reports.

The villains of course are Destro, the Baroness and Cobra but we have been told that Cobra Commander will have more of a “Emperor Palpatine”-like character arch. The Joes will be mainly facing Destro and the Baroness.

Helping Cobra will be one of the coolest groups of characters from the G.I. Joe comics and cartoons…the Dreadnoks.

The mercenaries known as Dreadnoks lead by Zartan including his brother and sister Zarana and Zandar will be the hired muscle that Cobra will use in its day to day operations. Zartan is known for his martial arts ability as well as his mastery of disguise. Additionally, through genetic manipulation, Zartan is able to change the color of his skin to blend in with his surroundings.

Thank you screenwriter Stuart Beattie, for preserving the incredible awesome that is Cobra. His draft also included Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow as focal characters and reports that the team is still based in the US. The Dreadnoks were always some of the better characters from the GI Joe canon, serving both as an unpredictable threat and a great source of comic relief. They’ll be a welcome inclusion in this movie.

Paramount Pictures is officially announcing Stephen Sommers as the director of the long anticipated G.I. Joe movie. Variety has the story.

The studio is hiring a writer immediately, and has set a February production start for a summer 2009 release.

The accelerated production schedule began right after Sommers pitched his version of the film to Par chairman-CEO Brad Grey and production prexy Brad Weston on Wednesday evening. He was hired in the room.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura will produce with Hasbro chief operating officer Brian Goldner. Sommers and his Sommers Co. partner Bob Ducsay will also be involved as producers.

IESB has a lead on that writer: Stuart Beattie. He wrote scripts for Collateral and Pirates Of The Carribean.

Well its official now, and if they’re not using any of the existing scripts that have leaked online or been reported on before, we should be fine. Because those scripts suck. I’ve got one here where Cobra Commander is Duke’s childhood buddy and was turned evil by Destro. Yeah.

IESB reports that Stephen Sommers has turned down directing GI Joe. Apparently he demanded 10 million bucks for the job. Much like the rest of us, he must’ve blocked Van Helsing from his memory and not realized he’s lucky anyone in Hollywood would even talk to him anymore.
But all the same, Len Wiseman is now the top pick. He directed Underworld and Live Free Or Die Hard. Not much of a huge step up. Wiseman is also expected to announce he’ll direct the remake of Escape from New York with 300’s Gerard Butler as Snake Plisskin or the adaptation of Epic Games’ Gears Of War. Obviously of these three movies, he can only do one at a time, so if Escape happens first, GI Joe won’t hit the screen until 2009 at the earliest.
Can anyone buy Kate Beckinsale as Lady Jaye?

OK, this is the messy part I didn’t want to talk about in my GI Joe update from yesterday. The GI Joe movie has to appeal to an international audience, so it can’t be all US Military. If Mark Wahlberg is Duke, then they need his British counter part, Action Man. Not the most creative name in the world, but its historically correct. The Crank, The Snatch, and The Transporter Jason Statham could be that Action Man according to IESB.

But wait, we’re talking about an adaptation of the old Real American Hero line, right? That was Action Force, and those comics and cartoons were just rebranded by title; Duke, Flint, General Hawk and the rest were still the same guys. Maybe Statham can play Big Ben?

I’ll follow this story to the bloody end, but I’m just going say now that this movie needs fans to speak up and save it like Transformers did. Tom Desanto and Don Murphy understood the rabid fanbase and tried to find some middle ground in Transformers and whether you loved the movie or hated it, they did balance the classic with the new pretty well. GI Joe needs fans to start writing studios and start making ridiculous message board proclaimations now if they want this movie to even remotely resemble the Real American Hero series or comics.

Now that we’ve opened up the casting call, who would you like to to see? Michael Clarke Duncan as Roadblock? Scarlett Johansson as Scarlett? Shia Labeouf as Duke Jr? Leave a comment!

Can lightening strike twice? And by asking that I don’t mean can another toy become successful movie, I mean can a director of critically panned fair win over legions of fans by balancing a mainstream and hardcore audience?

Stephen Sommers, the man behind the Brendan Fraser “Mummy” movies and the absolutely dreadful Van Helsing is now rumored to be the pick for directing Hasbro’s GI Joe.

Now Transformers essentially had its hardest work ahead of the effects team: making convincing characters came easy once you were convinced they could be real. GI Joe has some great characters too, but they are merely human, and it’ll take more than a guy dressed like Snake Eyes who doesn’t talk to get audiences to show up. Theres also that huge problem of this being a military movie and keeping it safe for kids. Transformers got away with all the violence and gunplay because it never showed a drop of blood and most of it was between non-human performers. Lets not kid ourselves, the villains need to be Cobra Commander, Destro, and The Baroness leading thousands of disposable soldiers.

Is Sommers up to the job? I honestly don’t think so, but I’ve been surprised before when Bryan Singer dropped the ball on Superman and Michael Bay surpassed expectations on Transformers. Getting Mark Wahlberg would help, but this needs to be handled very carefully.

From IESB

IESB reports producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura has approached Mark Wahlberg for the role of Duke in the long delayed GI Joe movie, and further, Walhberg has agreed to it!

I’ve been sitting on a copy of the script for a couple years now, kind of sure that this movie would never get made. But with Transformers poised to be one of the biggest movies of 2007, di Bonaventura is obviously chomping at the bit to get his other hot action figure property into production.

Its about that time of the year again.

All the toy companies gather in New York to unveil their plans for the coming year. The event doesn’t actually start until tomorrow, but information and pictures are already making their way to our little set of tubes on Inter-net. We’ll try and do one Toy Fair post a day and maybe one wrap up post for the event so as not to clutter the news page.

Read on for info on GI Joe, Transformers, Marvel Legends, and more!

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This year, the GI Joe brand celebrates the 25th Anniversary of the 3.25 inch toy line. To celebrate, Hasbro has created a line consisting of the top 25 fan-favorite characters in the 3.25 inch figure style. These figures will feature added articulation that seem to be comparable to the Marvel Legends Showdown figures currently available in stores.

MasterCollector had revealed the news of this line and were going to announce a new figure each day this week to the collector club (and still are), but Hasbro accidentally posted pictures of the entire first wave of 10 figures, effectively letting the cat out of the bag. To add insult to injury, just after the initial announcement, CobraIsland.com posted the listing of the first wave that someone from the TNI boards found in the computer at the toy store for which they work. Oddly though, the listing does not match the pictures that were revealed.

Here’s the listing for those too lazy to follow hyperlinks:

GIJ 25TH ANNIVERSARY STORM SHADOW
GIJ 25TH ANNIVERS SNAKE EYES WITH WOLF
GIJ 25TH ANNIVERSARY COBRA OFFICER
GIJ 25TH ANNIVER CORBRA COMMANDER W/HOOD
GIJ 25TH ANNIVERSARY FLINT
GIJ 25TH ANNIVERSARY BEACHHEAD
GIJ 25TH ANNIVERSARY SERPENTOR
GIJ 25TH ANNIVERSARY BUZZER
GIJ 25TH ANNIVERSARY LADY JAYE
GIJ 25TH ANNIV COBRA TROOPER

Yesterday was the fourth day of announcements so the following figures have already been announced in order: Storm Shadow, Duke, Scarlett, and Gung Ho. The figures all seem to sport outfits that are based on their original figures from the first line.

I have posted all ten of the images after the jump. If you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t look. I’ll be darned if these aren’t some good looking figures, though.

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