Stephen Sommers has been heard screaming "Yo Joe!" - Yup, he's directing the G.I. JOE film at Paramount!

Hey folks, Harry here... As soon as that Marvel/G.I.Joe cartoon and Comic book series hit, I was a fan. I loved the figures - midget kin to the classic Joes I inherited from my father - but infinitely cooler in design. I loved the look and feel of this bastard relative of Nick Fury's S.H.I.E.L.D. - but the look worked and COBRA was even cooler. My friends and I played for hours with these toys - and loved the cartoon and the comic... For weeks now, I've heard rumors that Stephen "MUMMY" Sommers was helming G.I.JOE. Then I heard there was some problems with the deal they were putting together and that it looked like Sommers wasn't going to be screaming, "Yo Joe!," any time soon. But with the impending strike coming up - and the success of TRANSFORMERS - it looks like Paramount has locked and loaded this project for a quick start. Now - I'm not a Stephen Sommers hater, I disliked THE MUMMY, but oddly loved MUMMY RETURNS and VAN HELSING - and I accept all the shit I take for liking those films - but it's because of the After School Cartoon Glee that Sommers infuses into his films. No real weight - light and floaty. Which, for this version of G.I.JOE - isn't necessarily that far off. The problem I hear is that the script is totally fucking awful. That it doesn't really capture the G.I.JOE UNIVERSE - and it is a universe that you have got to be telling here. A world of fantastic high tech wonders - of specialization units for every sort of sub-mission you could imagine. And the bad guys... they're everybit as organized - but under no circumstances should this be a story of a few men on a mission. This is about the GI JOE organization versus the COBRA bastards. And you have to base the visual design on these characters. I'm a little terrified that this film is being rushed into the pipeline - I hope it works out - but I fear the worst.