We’ve been talking for some time about the fact Paramount has the proverbial ball rolling on a GI Joe movie project. There is even word that Mark Walberg is signed on to play “Duke” in the film. But now there is word that a director has been attached to guide the project into fruition. That man seems to be “The Mummy” 1 and 2 director Stephen Sommers. Sommers also directed the wreck of a film “Van Helsing” and “Deep Rising” as well as a couple of other forgettable titles.
Our friends over at IESB have the scoop:
The word is that Paramount has offered Stephen “Mummy Wrangler” Sommers the task of bringing the next old school icon back to the big screen. It looks like rather than sticking with either the Skip Woods origin story or Elliot/Lovett’s more straight out adaptation they will be focuisng on a mash-up of the two.
Ok, what makes this scoop a little suspicious is that right now the IMDB lists Sommers has already having 3 other films in the works, including 2 already in pre-production. Would Sommers drop one or more of those for GI Joe? Are they not planning on getting started on Joe for another year or so? Not sure.
What is clear is that IF this is true, GI Joe already has one strike against it. Sommers is “ok” at doing action and adventure… sometimes. The first 2 Mummy films actually aren’t bad… but oh my sweet goodness Van Helsing was a total mess. Deep Rising was awful, and his “Jungle Book” remake was forgotten before I even dropped my empty popcorn bad in the trash bin.
We’ll have to wait and see if this gets confirmed.
