D.J. Caruso wanted G.I. Joe 3 to crossover with the Transformers

Paramount Pictures has been trying to get G.I. JOE 3 off the ground ever since the release of G.I. JOE: RETALIATION, and two years ago the studio began courting D.J. Caruso to take the helm of G.I. JOE 3. Development on the sequel was delayed as they waited for the actor's schedules to align and Caruso wound up directing the upcoming XXX: RETURN OF XANDER CAGE instead. While speaking with Collider, Caruso spilled a few details of what he had in mind for G.I. JOE 3.

D.J. Caruso recognized that although the franchise had been successful, neither of the G.I. JOE movies had completely clicked. His solution? A crossover between the G.I. JOE and TRANSFORMERS franchises. Unfortunately, Paramount wasn't quite ready to make that leap at the time.

They’re [Paramount] not ready to do [G.I. Joe meets Transformers] yet. That’s exactly what they should do but they’re not ready to do that because in fact the script that I was developing, the two worlds sort of collided at the end and when they read it they were like, ‘We’re not ready to do this yet.’… They will eventually collide those two worlds and it’s probably when Mr. Bay decides he’s done with Transformers.

Much like the writers room assembled to map out the future of the TRANSFORMERS franchise, a similar writers room was set up to assemble Hasbro's other properties like G.I. Joe, Micronauts, Visionaries, M.A.S.K. (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand) and ROM. I'd imagine that we'll see a G.I. JOE & TRANSFORMERS crossover at some point, but it may be a while off yet. As for the status of G.I. JOE 3, Caruso says that he'll speak with Paramount about the sequel once again following the release of XXX 3. "It’s a valuable franchise," said Caruso. "[It’s] not that they didn’t get it right, they just wanna really get it right and see if they can push it to the next level." XXX: RETURN OF XANDER CAGE will hit theaters on January 20th.

Is a crossover with the TRANSFORMERS franchise the best way to re-launch G.I. JOE?