Cinematical

There will probably be no monsters in the live-action G.I. Joe movie, but that isn't stopping Stephen Sommers from taking the job as its director. Yes, IESB called it last week, but now it is confirmed: the guy who gave us The Mummy, The Mummy Returns and Van Helsing is helming the adaptation of our beloved toy/cartoon. And hopefully Sommers won't find any excuse to insert his usual surplus of bad CGI.

Maybe I have a bad memory, but I can't think of any reason why a G.I. Joe movie would even need special effects. Sommers could try to make Destroy completely computer animated, or put in an unnecessary giant cobra somewhere -- one with The Rock's face badly superimposed on it. I know, I'm giving not giving Sommers any credit at all, but I never saw any of his pre-Mummy pics (unlike Scott, who likes his Deep Rising), so I'm going to remain an admittedly unfair cynic about the news. I also don't know how well a live-action war-type movie for kids will really work out; and as far as Sommers' efforts with kid-friendly adaptations go, The Adventures of Huck Finn and The Jungle Book don't seem to have been well-received.

G.I. Joe has been given a new release goal, too. Paramount aims to bring the movie out in 2009, rather than in 2010, and is looking to begin production come February. The studio is also going to work with a new script. Apparently Sommers pitched his own idea for the movie Wednesday night, and Paramount loved it. The new version of the G.I. Joe, according to Variety, will actually be more X-Men and James Bond than war movie. Also, the title now stands for "Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity, and COBRA is an evil arms-dealing organization. I guess the "real American hero" tag has to be eliminated to appeal to international markets, too.

A previous script was written by Skip Woods (Swordfish) that reportedly wasn't very good; it is unclear whether David Elliot and Paul Lovett (co-writers of Four Brothers) are still the new screenwriters for Sommers version (Variety says the studio is hiring a writer immediately -- presumably someone(s) new. According to another unconfirmed IESB scoop, the new scribe is actually Collateral's Stuart Beattie). It also wasn't announced whether or not Jason Statham is in fact appearing in the movie. Sommers and his Sommers Company partner Bob Ducsay now join Lorenzo di Bonaventura (Transformers) and Hasbro's Brian Goldner as producers.