The first movie was put in the hands of Four Brothers screenwriters David Elliot and Paul Lovett and Pirates of the Caribbean's Stuart Beattie. The scripted by Zombieland duo Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. And today we learn that the third movie in the growing G.I. Joe franchise has found a writer of its very own. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Evan Daugherty - the writer best known for crafting the screenplay for Rupert Sanders' Snow White and the Huntsman - has been hired to script the next installment of the action movie series, which is already set to be directed by G.I. Joe: Retaliation helmer Jon Chu.
While Snow White and the Huntsman was a Universal Pictures production, this will be the second time that Daugherty has been hired for a Paramount project. Along with Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec, the screenwriter is credited on the upcoming Michael Bay-produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which recently completed production and is now on target to be released August 8, 2014. We can presume that the studio liked what they saw from Daugherty, which is what led them to assign him another one of their biggest franchises.
But Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles isn't the only big movie that currently sits on the screenwriter's plate. He is also one of the credited writers behind Neil Burger's highly-anticipated adaptation of Veronica Roth's Divergent, which stars Shailene Woodley, Kate Winslet, Theo James, Miles Teller and Ashley Judd, and just released its first trailer:
As THR notes, there isn't a great deal of pressure on Daugherty's screenwriting abilities, as both of the previous G.I. Joe movies were critical flops that went on to make a whole bunch of money at the box office (I'll still defend G.I. Joe: Retaliation, but will also admit that it's also quite stupid). The first film, directed by Stephen Sommers, scored just over $300 million globally when it came out in 2009, and the sequel rode the star power of Dwayne Johnson and Bruce Willis to a $371 million total.
G.I. Joe 3 is obviously still in its earliest stages and as a result we're not quite sure where the story is going to go. Paramount has yet to announce a release date for the film yet, but is it possible that it could join the insane list of blockbusters that are scheduled to come out in summer 2015? (The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Star Wars: Episode VII, Batman vs. Superman, etc.) We'll have all the details about the film for you as they are released.
