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G.I. Joe, Micronauts, Visionairies, M.A.S.K. (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand) and ROM: Spaceknight.  All in one shared universe.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/paramount-hasbro-gi-joe-universe-848920 (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/paramount-hasbro-gi-joe-universe-848920)


Interestingly, all of these properties have been published as Marvel comics.  

This makes the Universal Monster shared universe look like a better idea by comparison. Paramount has struggled making G.I. Joe a successful movie franchise. Visionaries wasn't even a successful cartoon/comic book/toy line.

Edit: Also not sure what the benefit of having any of these properties interacting with each other would be. There's been plenty of G.I. Joe/Transformer crossovers in toys and comics so that would seem like the obvious route to go but Transformers isn't even mentioned here. What would be the Avengers moment they'd be building up to with this that makes it important for all these unrelated concepts to be sharing a universe?

Of course they are going to create a brand new toy line, I mean enemy, for them to fight.

GI Joe and MASK I could see in a shared universe. Don't know why they would and am certain they should not do that but still, it's at least plausible. Micronauts and ROM? Total fucking shit idea. Visionaries? I don't even remember that shit.

I'm imagining the story will be something like... no, wait, I was taking a crap.  Probably the same thing.

Wasn't Visionairies weird knights with magic powers fantasy?  Like He-Man, but with totally rad to the max holograms?  Or am I thinking of something else?  Because as awesome as Visionaries and MASK were as a kid, I have no idea how you'd mix them in a way that didn't completely miss the point of one of the two.

This just pisses me off because it makes it even harder for James Gunn to get a shot at Rom with GotG 3.... Pipe dream, but Gunn and I both love the original toaster and wish he could have been in GotG.

Yes, that's them. I had to google to remember them but sure enough that's it. The cartoon was awful even by 80s, "We need a vehicle to push this product on kids" standards. Like sub Captain Power and the soldiers of the future shit. (Remember them..the guns and toys that interacted with the TV show? Yeah.)

It was so bad it only made 13 episodes. http://www.thevisionaries.net/

ANYWAY - yeah this is just as I predicted in another thread- I think it was the Marvel one. Disney/ Marvel have been kicking SO MUCH ass and taking so many nerd-dollars that you're going to see all the studios attempt this with whatever they have in their stable.

No, it doesn't matter if the properties they have are crap or don't make any sense to us. Think of this: How much do you know about romance novels and romance novel writers? Now decide you're going to combine them based on that level of knowledge and you have what your average studio exec is thinking. "Fuck, if Jackie Collins sells millions AND Stephanie Meyer does as well then a crossover between the two with some 50 shades thrown in is a sure win!"

So now we have WB attempting the DC universe, Disney with several well-established universes, and now Paramount with their attempt. Honestly I'm surprised Paramount didn't try and cramp Star Trek in there as well, the newest iteration may as well be in it.

Comcast (Universal) and Fox are lagging behind. I wonder what crap they're going to shit out on us from their stable.

I can see Universal now: Jason Bourne has to chase down a Mummy with Brendon Frasier who's somehow still 40 in the 2010s. The twist is the ship transporting the sarcophagus to L.A. went aground off the coast of Isla Nublar C, where the Minons retreated to after Gru's death!

Grain of salt rumors say the idea will be GI Joe centric.  Each movie is about a GI Joe team that teams up with an ally to stop the combined forces of Cobra and the natural foe of that ally.  Every movie can feature new GI Joe teams, new allies, and new enemies - meaning no actor can hold them Downey hostage.  That may be the best possible implementation of this concept, but it is still one of the worst ideas ever.

I used to love M.A.S.K. back in the day. A good movie of that idea would have my attention.

Of course, this will not be that.

This will work if the plot involves ROM killing everyone.

I had all kinds of MASK stuff. Loved it. I'm a little sad they're going to shit all over my good times with my friends.

They've already announced a Mummy remake and have cast a female as the lead mummy. So it will likely be worse than what you just typed.

Also, even as a kid, I thought MASK was utter shit even by the standards of shitty cartoons marketing vehicles to sell more toys. I barely remember the Visionaries even after looking at the pics of the toys on their web site.

It would likely be a good idea if Paramount made a really good GI Joe movie first before they try to create a shared universe around it. I mean, I liked both of the ones they've released, but they were not what I'd call great. They weren't even Man of Steel good. Watchable and fun but not tentpole level. And nowhere close to as good as any of the Marvel stuff including all iterations of the Hulk movies.

Destro builds a time machine to go into the future and team up with the Romulan Empire?

Next Shared Universes:

* Rainbow Bright, My Little Pony, Strawberry Chortcake, Monchichis, Cabbage Patch Kids, Care Bears, Popples, Pound Puppies, and Saw

* E.T.,  Ice Pirates, Spaceballs and Slither.

* Yogi, Baloo, Teddy Ruxpin, Winnie the Poo, Paddington, Ted, and Pedobear.

YES PLEASE.

Wait.. the ET aliens were in the SW Prequels... and Gunn directed Slither....

STAR WARS AND MARVEL SHARED UNIVERSE.

Disclaimer to my earlier post:

I didn't watch the cartoon, I just loved the toys.

You didn't like MASK?  What is it sbout the idea of making sure your car doors on your flying car have to be open do you not like? H8R.

Needs We Bear Bears.  Icebear and Winnie The Pooh philosophy showdown.

Where does My Pet Monster fit into all this.

All Universal really needs is a Fast and the Furious/Jurassic Park crossover movie.

I've said it before, but Muppets Star Wars needs to be a thing.

Also I feel like the Power Rangers could fit in somewhere; they could even use that test footage someone shot with Katie Sackhoff as a starting point.

We had a pair of MASK episodes on VHS and watched them over and over until we memorized them.

A while back, my brother and I were working on something when one of those episodes came on the playlist for our background noise, and it was goddamn spooky.  Like, ten seconds in and we were repeating back verbatim what the characters were saying, in the exact timing and tone of the actual episode.  Couldn't remember anything about the plot of the episode, but for some reason hearing X seconds of it let us remember X+1 seconds.  It was super eerie.  Like, ask me who the characters are and I have no idea, but that episode starts playing and somehow I remember that guy calling that guy Bruce but only like a half second before he does it.

Of course, that brain space couldn't be used for something helpful, like all the calculus I've forgotten, it's all taken up with people talking about the Roteks or whatever.

See Pedobear

(Absolute tangent: Is anyone else feeling kind of weird about the new Online Girl Scout Ordering Service where you can specify the *Girl Scout* of your choice?

http://www.girlscouts.org/en/cookies/all-about-cookies/How-to-Buy.html

This just looks like a really thin veil over something very, very bad....)

Meh, I prefer to eat Brownies.   :pedobear:

Universal has already been out there recently saying that they're going to be rebooting the old Universal Monster movies and setting them in a shared universe. They're starting with the Mummy and doing one new movie a year. Bride of Frankenstein sounds like it could be the next one.

I hope we get another Jaws exploitation movie!

I actually remember the Visionaires, they caught me at an age where the only thing to do on holidays in Ireland was watch whatever VHS tape was there and those were some of them.

Now what they really need is  Centurions adaptation. That is something which would actually semi-kinda almost fit with the GI Joe universe and Hollywood needs more movies with Orang Utang starring roles.

They need Sectaurs. A friend of mine when I was a kid had that giant fly hand puppet toy with the guy riding on it hanging from his ceiling. It was pretty cool looking.

I agree, Sectaurs were pretty awesome-looking. I never had one but always thought it was a cool idea.


See, I thought about this but ultimately since the source material is Public Domain I didn't expect them to attempt it. If the latest Frankenstein is any indication of their attempt then it should be put to bed as an idea already.

The Universal monster universe thing started with Dracula Untold.  The next one is The Mummy.  That Victor Frankenstein movie was done by Fox.

To be clear, the plan was started after Untold was made, but was shoehorned into the plans.... for whatever that may mean.

Optionally shoehorned in.... last I hear Dracula Untold was something they might option into the universe if they felt it worked out.  However, as the entire execution of these things is going to be crap, it doen't really matter if crappy Dracula joins crappy other monsters or not.

They did reshoots to make it fit.

Yes, there was a market scene in modern day added at the end.  That preserved the option for inclusion.  After the film tanked, there was some question as to whether they'd capitalize upon it - and recent articles on the topic continue to cast doubt they'll use it.  That version of Dracula really doesn't seem to be one that makes sense for a combined universe approach.

Tom Cruise has been linked to the "franchise" and there is some speculation that he might end up being either the heroic human that ties the films together as the foe for the monsters, or he could be Dracula.  Regardless, how dare we pollute this wonderful thread with talk of a different franchise!

They're going to tie it into the Anne Rice universe, and he's just reprising Lestat.

Stop giving Hollywood ideas.

Someone needs to...

Or at the very least, a goddamn different set of someone's because fuck me.

The infinite number of monkeys are doing the best they can, but with technology limited to typewriters they can do only so much...

It occurs to me that Hollywood is doing its damnedest to make that maxim literally true.

If we're just naming old cartoons we liked, I used to watch Silver Hawks and Galaxy Rangers. Plus MASK and Centurions, but they've been already mentioned.

I'd probably hate them now if I saw them.  :grin:

Real talk: Spiral Zone would make an amazing Hollywood blockbuster.

The secret best cartoon that nobody remembers.

While we're at it, Great Space Coaster should be thrown in... because no gnews is good gnews without...

Transformers movies are all pretty horrible but I do have to say that I'm excited for the Bumblebee movie.

Maybe. I know the next Transformers movie was bumped from the schedule, but if Bumblebee can avoid the stigma of those movies I can see it getting follow-ups. It's a movie I was completely dismissing until I heard that Laika president and Kubo and the Two Strings director Travis Knight was doing it. Since then I've seen/heard some other things that have me looking forward to it as well.

They'd rather reboot it into their *shiver* shared Hasbro universe.

It's literally this, along with Gi Joe MASK and some other crap.

I enjoyed the Mask toys and may still have some packed away somewhere. But I can't see how they'd make a good movie.

Um, what?  A secret organization that fights crime using crazy awesome transforming vehicles? Play it like some kind of Bond Movie, except with a spy team instead of lone spy, where the vehicles are the ultra gadgets and I would watch that in a heartbeat.

Yeah, I can see it but not sure how well they'd differentiate it from the modern GI Joe.

I also really do not see how you marry up GI Joe, the Transformers and Mask all being on the same earth having had those movies be around for so long already without referencing anything from the others. I mean, without looking like an obvious cash grab to anyone under the age of 12.

The vehicles and stuff are awesome. But the central conceit of the toys was the masks the characters wore. Each mask had what was basically a super power. And we know that it's a rare actor who will act under a helmet for a full movie. And while it worked for toys and cartoons you couldn't make it work well in a film. And if you remove the masks, well, you've removed the central conceit of the entire thing.

hmm, it's been literally ages since I actually watched the show as a kid, I admit, so I don't really recall the masks themseves having any special abilities.  Thought they just basically served as the interface / control mechanism for the vehicles.

Masks>Suits with masks that retract Iron Man style whenever the main characters are doing anything that isn't CGI battle scenes.

Really after the rash of super hero movies with masked characters that argument just seems weird: Batman, Spiderman, Iron Man, Captain America, Black Panther etc., etc. Film makers take some liberties and have the mask off for nearly every non fighting scene.

Edit: No the masks could do stuff like levitate things, one of the bad guys had a flamethrower I think? One could project hologram illusions. Barely remember this now and it makes the whole thing seem a bit over the top, 'throw concepts at a wall and see what sticks' kind of thing.

Pretty sure they are all going to be reboots, that's why the transformers series is ending with Bumblebee.

To be fair only about ten people remember modern GI Joe...but I get what you mean, MASK is just GI Joe with different vehicles.  The only way it could work well is to have MASK be a small unit of personalities like guardians of the galaxy(or fast and furious) that are always a team and then have GI Joe be your avengers with each having very specialized abilities.

There is a thread to ignore the Hasbro universe.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=25104.0 (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=25104.0)

Mask could easily be worked into the existing transformers setting, as the original Mask comics used reverse-engineered transformer tech as the basis for it's vehicles.

Sounds like work on a Mask movie has stalled out for the time being anyway (as has work on a ROM movie). Micronauts and G.I. Joe have been scheduled for 2020, but then a Snake Eye solo movie was just announced a couple weeks back and it's not clear if that is going to be the 2020 G.I. Joe movie. Also, given that Transformers 7 was only recently removed from the schedule, Paramount's plans for the Hasbro properties still seems to be very much in flux.

The only one of these that vaguely interests me is Micronauts, and that's mostly just because they were the best fucking toys ever made by human beings.

My extensive GI Joe collection begs to differ. I hope their movie does good so it shoots up in price :P

What's kind of annoying about GI Joe is that the modern comic book reboot was actually kind of fun. The movie was such generic action schlock it was painful. They really suffer from the issue some of the pre-Marvel comic movies did where they were too afraid to put characters into costumes and instead gave them more realistic uniforms with uniform colour palettes. Which makes it really fucking hard to identify anyone and thus remember who is who.

The Hasbro shared universe idea is a fucking disaster because building up one or two of those franchises is a lot of work and I don't think they have any kind of vision for actually pulling it together. If they could get a couple of people who really did love the toys and had fun with the comics and could come up with a concept they could start working on 1 or 2 of the things. The problem is this is literally driven by some executives going 'hey, we've got a licence for this property and Marvel are doing well with a movie franchise building up a universe and producing more and more stuff. Let's do that!'

That kind of copycat bullshit works in some mediums but blockbuster movies? They need some kind of creative backing, they might not be art but they need to be entertaining and if you're going to pull off a shared universe they need some real Vision stuff.