‘It’s absurd’: The star of a franchise with a 0-for-3 track record set to cross over with an IP that’s 7 movies deep and struggling trashes the brand

From the outside looking in, it makes no sense for Paramount to decide that now is the best time to have the Transformers and G.I. Joe franchises cross over, unless of course it’s one final roll of the dice for both of them.

Each of the last three entries in the never-ending saga of the Autobots and Decpticons has earned less than its predecessor, with Rise of the Beasts exiting theaters as the lowest-grossing entry in the entire seven-film series. Meanwhile, the Joes were barely profitable across The Rise of Cobra and Retaliation, before Snake Eyes bombed horrendously.

In essence, what you’ve got is two flagging brands both coming off their worst-performing installments yet, so the prospect of having them integrated sounds more like a threat than a promise of top-tier blockbuster action. One person who admits that G.I. Joe wasn’t their finest moment is Snake Eyes star Andrew Koji, who got drawn into sharing his feelings while speaking to Inverse about the awesome Warrior.

“After this, it could just all be downhill for me. But at least for now [my experience on Warrior] makes me go, “Okay, I’d like to do stuff with integrity.” And G.I. Joe really wasn’t that, was it? Hollywood is just obsessed with telling the same old thing over and again. Firstly, remakes. Secondly, it’s got to be based on IP. Third, it’s so absurd because I’m just like, hold on. People want originality. Where is it? What is going on here?

Snake Eyes didn’t do too well, which I knew it wasn’t going to. I think they’re probably going to reboot from the ground up. I’m cool. I did like Storm Shadow Tommy. I found a way to love him and I think there would’ve been something to do … there would’ve been a really cool Storm Shadow film if they did it right.”

You can’t say he doesn’t have a point, and Koji is self-aware enough to realize that Snake Eyes won’t be featured in any career retrospectives decades down the line. At least he enjoyed playing his character, and he was undoubtedly one of the sole bright spots in an otherwise turgid mess, but don’t expect him to come running back should the Transformers crossover extend an invitation his way.