7 Abandoned Movie Crossovers (And Why They Fell Apart)

The Crossover: Bringing together G.I. Joe and Transformers on the big-screen would seem like a logical move. Both properties are owned by Paramount, both are based on popular toylines, and both have crossed over in other mediums, like comic-books.

Somewhat unsurprisingly then, the idea of a Joe-formers cinematic crossover has been kicked around for well over five years.

One of the earliest mentions came in early 2013, when producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura told CinemaBlend that it was a definite possibility. A few months later, G.I. Joe: Retaliation director Jon M. Chu said he'd like to make it, should it ever be greenlit. No possible plot points about such a crossover were ever disclosed, but it was expected that the Michael Bay-era Transformers movies would somehow link up with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's G.I. Joe crew.

This came very close to happening, too. When G.I. Joe 3 was in development a couple of years ago, the project's director at the time - D.J. Caruso - told Collider that, in his script, the two properties "collided" at the end, paving the way for a proper shared movie in the future.

Why It Fell Apart: In that same Collider interview, Caruso also stated that Paramount simply wasn't ready to pursue a crossover at the time, and that everyone involved was going "back to the drawing board".

"Well yeah but they’re not ready to do [G.I. Joe/Transformers] yet. That’s exactly what they should do but they’re not ready to do that... it came close but I think what the studio was trying to do was reassess it and so now they’re back to the drawing board."

In 2015, THR reported that Hasbro and Paramount were creating a writer's room to build a shared universe around G.I. Joe, Micronauts, Visionairies, ROM, and M.A.S.K - not Transformers. Shortly after, we learned that the latter franchise was heading in a new direction with Bumblebee. These bits of information line up with what Caruso said - that Paramount just wasn't ready to combine the Joes and the Transformers.

Plus, with the first two G.I. Joe movies hardly being fan-favourites, Michael Bay's latest Transformers flick underperforming, and Bumblebee - a completely different type of Transformers movie - proving a huge success, it's unlikely we'll see a crossover with the current iterations of each franchise.