Stephen Sommers directing G.I. Joe movie (plus who might be writing the script)

No not a remake of The Story of G.I. Joe, the 1945 movie about Ernie Pyle, and it's not a movie about the foot-tall action figure that your daddy might have played with. Sommers is directing G.I. Joe, a big-screen flick of the extremely popular toy line from the 1980s.

From the story...

While G.I. Joe toys have been around for decades, the movie will be based on the toy line launched in the 1980s, which also was tied to a Saturday morning cartoon and comic book series.

Director Stephen Sommers' take was inspired by a trip to Hasbro's headquarters in Rhode Island, where he learned in depth about the world of G.I. Joe. Sommers then met with Paramount brass, who sparked to his ideas. The studio is eyeing a summer 2009 release.

The film will see soldiers from all branches of the military fighting a terrorist group called Cobra, led by the Cobra Commander and featuring such villains as the Baroness, metal-faced arms dealer Destro, master of disguise Zartan and biker gang Dreadnoks.

On the good guys' side were heroes such as the mute ninja Snake Eyes and the fetching heroine Scarlett, who were led by a Joe named Duke.

And then IESB.net has who might be writing the script: Stuart Beattie, who worked on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies for Disney.

There's more that I want to write about this, but not right now. Suffice it to say I've had some thoughts lately about a big-screen G.I. Joe movie (let us pretend that... thing... from 1987 never happened) and why it might not work as well as the Transformers did. But if Sommers is helming and Beattie is writing, I am inclined to have some confidence in this.