Monday, June 12, 2023

Is the teaser at the end of Transformers Rise of the Beasts a hint that we are getting a Void Rivals cinematic universe?


I went and saw Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, and it had a pretty shocking ending. There are spoilers ahead if you intend to see this movie, but I was caught by surprise and now I have questions. So you have been warned!

If you managed to see it this weekend, then you know that Noah (played by Anthony Ramos) gets a job offer from a "secret organization" at the end of the movie. This is due to his association with the alien autobots let by Optimus Prime. We don't know who this "secret organization" is other than they have (essentially) the resources of Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D. A panel slides away in an office, and suddenly there's all of this military equipment in a hangar, and you realize there is way more to this organization than meets the eye. Then Noah gets handed a business card. He flips it over and it reads, "G.I. Joe."

There hasn't been a good G.I. Joe movie in years (I'd argue since the initial one came out over a decade ago with Channing Tatum in it). The one that came out with Dwayne Johnson in it was awful. So now my main question is: will Paramount and Hasbro reboot G.I. Joe? Or are they planning a team up movie with the Transformers? These are important questions for nerds to consider.

A few thoughts though on all of this. I know that Hasbro has been wanting to do a shared cinematic universe for its toy lines ever since they saw how successful Marvel got with its cinematic universe. But G.I. Joe in particular has been largely unpopular with movie going crowds. The Snake Eyes movie came and went in a flash of smoke, and no one really cared or got excited for it at all. However, when I was watching the Transformers movie on Friday evening (with a friend), the moment where the card flipped and revealed G.I. Joe got a strong crowd reaction. It was similar to when Cap used Mjolnir on screen in Endgame. So...they might be onto something.

There's also one other thing. Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead, just launched a comic book series called Void Rivals, and it is a shared universe that has both Transformers and G.I. Joe in it. This series begins a new Skybound comic book license with Hasbro for those two intellectual properties. As for Void Rivals...I have no idea what this comic book even is about other than Robert Kirkman is the biggest name behind it, and that Void Rivals #1 doesn't even reveal the true nature of the comic until the end. I guess we shall have to wait and see. But Robert Kirkman is pretty close to being a legend in today's comic book titans. So if anyone can pull this off, I think it will be him. 

3 comments:

  1. I'd love a decent GI Joe movie but don't ever see that happening.

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  2. They could have just been floating the idea out there to see how people react. And if they react like you, that might get a shared universe GI Joe movie greenlit.

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    1. You were right. After reading this post, last night I get a link to this article in my email: https://ew.com/movies/transformers-g-i-joe-crossover-plans/
      Yup, it's been in the works.

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