Paramount has officially announced a crossover movie bringing the Transformers and G.I. Joe franchises together – and it’s a more exciting prospect for one of those franchises than the other. The ending of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts teased a connection between the two franchises when Anthony Ramos’ Noah Diaz was invited to interview for a job at a secret government organization that turned out to be G.I. Joe. Now, the studio is officially working on a crossover event that will combine the two beloved Hasbro franchises for a cinematic extravaganza.

While this crossover is a tantalizing prospect for fans of both franchises, it’s more exciting for the G.I. Joe franchise than the Transformers franchise. It’s not that it’s bad for Transformers; it’s just that it’s better news for G.I. Joe. Transformers has been more or less successful, give or take a few wobbles, throughout its entire two-decade run on the big screen. But the G.I. Joe franchise was pretty much dead on arrival. It was never a huge blockbuster property, and its last movie completely bombed. G.I. Joe could rely on the success of Transformers to help reboot the franchise.

The Transformers Movie Franchise Has Been Consistently Successful

Transformers hasn’t suffered any major failures

Since its first live-action movie hit theaters in 2007, Transformers has been a bona fide blockbuster franchise. Its movies have all been huge box office hits, with a couple of them even breaking the billion-dollar barrier. Every installment until Bumblebee vaulted over the half-billion mark and even Bumblebee, a smaller-scale spin-off starring just one of the fan-favorite Autobots, came close. Even Rise of the Beasts, which underperformed relative to its budget and the precedent set by the previous movies, still made $439 million at the worldwide box office (via Box Office Mojo).

Apart from Bumblebee, which was surprisingly well-received, every Transformers movie has been met with mixed to negative reviews. But that hasn’t stopped audiences from turning out in droves to watch the robot-on-robot action. Even the Transformers movies that have been slated by critics have done well at the box office. This is largely because audiences who are looking to see giant robots fight each other don’t really care if the story has nuanced themes, or if the cinematography is well-composed; they just want to see giant robots fighting each other.

The G.I. Joe Franchise Has Struggled To Get A Movie Franchise Going

Even the well-received G.I. Joe movies were lukewarm

The G.I. Joe franchise has never been a veritable blockbuster property. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and G.I. Joe: Retaliation both performed well enough at the box office to warrant the studio continuing to explore the I.P., but neither of them were massive hits that demonstrated a massive audience demand for more G.I. Joe stories. This was further reinforced by the all-out critical and commercial failure of the series’ first spin-off, Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins. Snake Eyes lost a lot of money for Paramount and was universally panned by critics.

Part of the reason for Transformers’ success over G.I. Joe is that the former offers something that audiences can’t find anywhere else, while the latter peddles in a pretty familiar genre. High-octane military action is nothing new – the kind of militaristic spectacle in G.I. Joe movies can also be seen in everything from Top Gun to Michael Bay movies – so the G.I. Joe films haven’t exactly set the world on fire. Transformers, on the other hand, offers the uniquely thrilling visuals of giant robots beating each other up and smashing through skyscrapers.

The Transformers Crossover Could Help Successfully Reboot The G.I. Joe Franchise

Transformers could give G.I. Joe a cinematic shot in the arm

The upcoming crossover between the Transformers and G.I. Joe franchises is Paramount’s best chance to get the G.I. Joe franchise back on track. The biggest problem with the previous G.I. Joe films is that they haven’t given audiences something they can’t find anywhere else, like the Transformers movies have with their towering alien robots at war with each other. But by bringing the U.S.P. of the Transformers franchise – the giant rock-‘em-sock-‘em robots – into the next G.I. Joe film, it’ll finally offer something unique.

The giant robots of the Transformers franchise will bring an extra degree of spectacle to the militaristic action of the G.I. Joe franchise. The crossover can establish a shared cinematic universe to rival Marvel Studios’ interconnected franchise. A world with a secret military organization and two warring races of alien robots has limitless potential for future storylines. Maybe the upcoming Transformers/G.I. Joe crossover movie is just the beginning of G.I. Joe’s big-screen comeback.

Source: Box Office Mojo