Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura has made a lot of movies since he started up his production company two decades ago, but he’s probably best known for shepherding the Transformers franchise. We had the chance to speak with Di Bonaventura as part of the press tour for Madame Web, his first Marvel flick, and we couldn’t help but ask about the status of the potential crossover between Transformers and GI Joe that was teased at the end of last summer’s Rise of the Beasts, which saw its protagonist character recruited into GI Joe.
“We are exploring now how to do that,” di Bonaventura told me. “And we hope to come in the summer of [2026], we are definitely going to deliver on the promise of a Joe entering the world. People keep talking about crossover. It’s not a crossover the way I see it, it’s a GI Joe character or characters entering the Transformers world so it’s not the mashup of the two.”
In other words, the plan isn’t to jump straight into some huge shared universe, but to get the ball rolling by integrating a little bit of GI Joe stuff in the next live-action Transformers movie in 2026.
Later in the conversation, though, di Bonaventura said something that may illuminate the roadmap for GI Joe x Transformers a little bit more. I asked if he has an older film or dormant franchise in his catalog that he might want to bring back, and he brought up the possibility of doing another GI Joe movie as well.
“I think GI Joe has been perceived that way [as dormant]. So I’d really like to bring a standalone GI Joe movie at some point in time,” he told me.
That statement isn’t a guarantee that it will happen or a reveal that there are plans in place for a new GI Joe movie. But alongside the Transformers situation, these answers might re-emphasize that the desire is there for more GI Joe on the big screen even after the Snake Eyes film bombed at the box office during COVID.
In the meantime, though, another Transformers movie is coming up this summer: the animated Transformers One, a prequel to the live-action films set on Cybertron, which stars Chris Hemsworth as the voice of Optimus Prime.
“Making the decision to make it animated made it affordable, funny enough,” di Bonaventura said. “You could not have made that movie live action. So finally agreeing that it’s time to make an animated movie, it allows us to open up a story that I think is going to be really exciting for fans and for people who don’t know the story.”
Given his experience as a blockbuster producer, having di Bonaventura’s name on a Marvel movie feels pretty normal. But it’s still unusual, because he’s never worked with Marvel, and Madame Web is only his third movie with Sony. So how did he end up here? It was director SJ Clarkson’s fault, it turns out.
“I wanted to work with SJ for a long time. And so Sony was taking on this character, and they really wanted SJ. And so we discussed it. And she really wanted me to come on as a producer. And so it’s really through her that I’m part of this,” di Bonaventura said. “And the funny part of it is, I had offered her several projects, which she had turned me down each time. So it was awesome to end up finally working with her.”
