G.I. Joe is one of the most well-known toy properties in the world. Originating in 1964 as a 12-inch toyline that represented the various forms of the United States military, G.I. Joe is the toyline that coined the term action figure. In 1982, Hasbro relaunched the brand as G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. This version featured 3.75-inch toys and vehicles (inspired by the success of the Star Wars toy brand) and featured a storyline with a conflict between the hero team G.I. Joe and the villainous terrorist organization known as Cobra led by the evil Cobra Commander.

The relaunch of the brand was a major hit and is most well known for the animated series G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero that ran from 1983 to 1986. It also was the basis of a popular Marvel Comic series that ran for 155 issues from 1982 to 1994, long after the brand’s boom of popularity in the 1980s, with writer Larry Hama expanding on much of the franchise’s mythology and giving the various characters personality and relationships. While attempts to relaunch G.I. Joe had popped up in the 90s and early 2000s through various other television series and toy launches, it never quite recaptured the public imagination the same way and had fallen behind Hasbro’s other big toyline, Transformers.

Attempts to make a G.I. Joe movie had been in development in Hollywood since the 1990s, and the first real attempt came close in the early 2000s, but due to the Iraq War the subject was deemed inappropriate and the push was made for Transformers to get a film made instead. While Transformers has been a highly successful film franchise, having released six films over 15 years with a seventh arriving in 2023, the G.I. Joe franchise has struggled.

Since the first film was released in 2009, only three G.I. Joe films have been made and after two attempts the franchise tried to reboot itself. There have been massive delays between films and while the first two entries were hits with major stars, they didn’t reach the breakout status of the Transformers films and likely seemed like disappointments for the studio. These are all the live-action G.I. Joe films released in theaters.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Following the box office success of Transformers in 2007, Hasbro and Paramount Pictures reteamed for an adaptation of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. Released in 2009 in the same summer as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra follows Duke (Channing Tatum) and his friend Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) as they are recruited into a top-secret international fighting force named G.I. Joe. The team consists of Scarlett (Rachel Nicols), Snake-Eyes (Ray Park), Breaker (Said Taghmaoui), and Heavy Duty (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), who attempt to stop arms dealer James McCullen (Christopher Eccelston) and his team, consisting of Baroness (Sienna Miller), Storm Shadow (Lee-Byung-huh), and Zartan (Arnold Vosloo), from unleashing havoc on the world with a pair of nanomite warheads.


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Directed by The Mummy and Van Helsing‘s Stephen Sommers, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra plays more like an adaptation of the G.I. Joe toys than the animated series or comics, and plays around with a lot of the G.I. Joe lore. Baroness is now both the ex-girlfriend of Duke and revealed to be the sister of The Doctor (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who is the future Cobra Commander, but in this version a scientist working for M.A.R.S. who is biding his time to take control from Destro.

Scarlett’s romance with Duke in the original series and Snake Eyes in the comics is changed to Ripcord, and the Joes themselves are made into an international organization rather than a U.S. military force as a way to reach a more global audience. It also does this in an attempt to downplay the actual war elements intrinsic to the franchise, as the U.S. was still occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, and instead favors a more classic James Bond vibe. The movie was quickly written before the 2007-2008 Writer’s Strike and released in theaters on August 7, 2009, where it opened to $54.7 million and went on to gross $150 million domestically and $302 worldwide.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Released four years after The Rise of Cobra, G.I. Joe: Retaliation attempts to both be a sequel and relaunch the franchise in an effort to address much of the criticisms of the first film. It hangs its central threat from a plot point left dangling in the previous film: Zartan having impersonated the President of the United States (Jonathan Pryce). Retaliation brings back some actors and characters, but for the most part disregards much of the cast in favor of a new team. The only returning characters are Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, Zartan, Cobra Commander, and Duke, but Cobra Commander is recast and Duke is killed off early in the film’s runtime. The film makes a quick reference to the events of the first film, calling it the Nanomite Wars, but no reference is made to the original team or the base in Egypt that housed thousands of recruits when it is said all the Joes are killed.


Zartan as the President orders the termination of the G.I. Joe unit and all that remain are Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki), and Flint (D.J Cortona). These characters team up with the franchise’s namesake General Joe Colton (Bruce Willis), alongside Snake Eyes and his new apprentice Jinx (Elodie Yung) in order to stop the organization Cobra, which has now been made the United States’ elite strike force (after the G.I. Joes had been wiped out) and soon threatens the whole world. Led by Cobra Commander with Zartan acting as the president, they are joined by Storm Shadow and Firefly (Ray Stevenson).

Stepping into the director’s chair is future Crazy Rich Asians and In The Heights filmmaker Jon M. Chu, who attempts to capture the look and spirit of the original 1980s cartoon. The film is notable for originally being set for release on June 29, 2012, only to be delayed back to March 28, 2013, just one month before it was set to open in theaters. The delay was done in an attempt to convert the movie to 3D, and likely avoid competition that summer from films like The Amazing Spider-Man, The Dark Knight Rises, and The Bourne Legacy. When it did open, it made a respectable $40.5 million over the three-day Easter weekend. While G.I. Joe: Retaliation grossed less than its predecessor domestically, it outgrossed it internationally and brought the film’s worldwide gross to $375 million.

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins

Paramount Pictures originally had plans to develop a third G.I. Joe film, and still does. But they also planned a spin-off origin film for the franchise’s most popular character, Snake Eyes, similar to how they were with Bumblebee for the Transformers films series. The hope was if the film was a success, it could be a reboot of the G.I. Joe franchise, and hence the project known as Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins was born.

The movie follows Snake Eyes (Henry Golding) and his friendship turned future rivalry with Tomisaburo “Tommy” Arashikage (Andrew Koji) who will become the future Storm Shadow. In a major departure from every other incarnation of Snake Eyes, this version talks and is played as a much more selfish individual who over the course realizes the errors of his ways but comes too late to where he has hurt those close to him and betrayed his friends trust to turn him into a future enemy. The film primarily focuses on the Arashikage Clan in Japan but the larger G.I. Joe series is hinted at with Baroness (Úrsula Corberó) and the organization Cobra working with the main villain, and Scarlett (Samara Weaving) representing the G.I. Joes.

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The film underwent several release date changes, originally scheduled for March 27, 2020, to October 16, 2020, and then a week later to October 23. Then the COVID-19 pandemic caused the film to be delayed until October 22, 2021. Then in March 2021, the film was bumped up to July 23, 2021, giving the film only three months to begin its marketing campaign. This move was likely done as a way to try and cash in on theaters slowly reopening, and Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins could be a typical summer blockbuster offering for audiences looking to come back to the theaters. However, it was a box office disappointment, crushed by films like Black Widow, Space Jam: A New Legacy, Old, and The Jungle Cruise. The film grossed $40.1 million worldwide against a budget of $88 million, and thus was a box office bomb and quickly forgotten about, scrapping the plans to spin the franchise off from this entry.

G.I. Joe: Ever Vigilant

Shortly after G.I. Joe Retaliation was released, a third film was put into development at Paramount Pictures. Originally intended for release in 2016, the film was delayed when director Jon M. Chu departed the project to direct the other Hasbro-based property Jem and the Holograms. In 2015, D.J. Caruso (Eagle Eye) was hired to direct and the original plan for the third film was to see the villainous twins Tomax Paoli and Xamot Paoli as the primary villains with Cobra Commander in a small role. Dwayne Johnson was set to return as Roadblock, and the film would also introduce Matt Tracker, the lead of the M.A.S.K. toy franchise, and rumors had the script ending with a reference to the Transformers films. This was at a time when Hasbro was developing a writer’s room to connect their various franchises.


In May 2018, the film was officially titled G.I. Joe: Ever Vigilant and was set to feature Roadblock joined by a team consisting of Wild Bill, Doc, Barbeque, Keel-Haul, and General Flagg. The film was set for release in 2020 but was then taken off the schedule in favor of Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins. While that would appear to be the end of that incarnation of the franchise, in March 2021 franchise producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura said multiple scripts for a third movie remain in development, hinting that a third film may eventually be released.

Other Future G.I. Joe Projects

As mentioned previously, Hasbro considered uniting the G.I. Joe franchise with others like M.A.S.K., Rom: The Space Knight, Micronauts, and Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light to create an interconnected shared universe of stories to compete with the MCU, DCEU, and the MonsterVerse. Yet in 2021, franchise producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura revealed that the plans for a shared universe would not be moving forward. While there has been some hesitation about crossing the franchise over with Transformers, di Bonaventura has said it’s inevitable.

The franchise does appear to be moving towards the world of live-action streaming series. In February 2021, the same year Snake Eyes was released, it was announced that a series focused on the character Lady Jaye was in development at Amazon. The series is said to be an extension of the film franchise and will be a joint venture between Amazon, Paramount, Skydance, and eOne.

Release Order of G.I. Joe Movies

Since 2009, three G.I. Joe films have been released theatrically. Had G.I. Joe: Retaliation not been pushed back from June 29, 2012, to March 2013 the franchise would have been a summer movie series. The gap between the first and second film was four years, while the reboot did not arrive until eight years after Retaliation and 12 years after the first film was released.

• G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra – August 7, 2009
• G.I. Joe: Retaliation – March 28, 2013
• Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins – July 23, 2021