The G.I. Joe and Transformers film franchises are some of the successful films of the past 20 years. While the Transformers movies are in the middle of a prequel era, the G.I. Joe films have yet to really take off. That could change in the near future with G.I. Joe getting another chance at a revival and the potential for a crossover with those mighty robots that was hinted at the end of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts–it’s not like they’ve never done it before.
However, talking to the Transformers One producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, he explains to GameSpot that there will be a crossover film, but not in the way we think of what crossover actually entails.
“I think you have to be careful because I think where the danger lies is when you try to fully represent both,” he said. “Somebody’s going to get a little short shrift here. I’ll give you an example: If you think about a lot of our movies, we have this team going out trying to save the day. Is that team a couple of Joes? Does that satisfy us all? I don’t think that satisfies enough. But this idea of crossover, which I rebel against a little bit, only in the sense that it seems like it’s promising an utter unity between the worlds.”
Di Bonaventura admitted to past mistakes of trying to cram too much story and not enough actual character work. He wants to change that.
“So we’re trying to find that balance and it’s tricky but we will absolutely have Joes in a Transformers movie. There is no question of that. It’s just a question of, you know, there are some people who argue, let’s have one of the Joe villains. I’ll say for myself, I don’t want them to be the primary villain. I don’t know that I feel enough jeopardy to the robots.”
Transformers One features the voices of Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne, and Jon Hamm. It arrives in theatres on September 20.
