Max Landis is back. Paramount has hired the screenwriter to develop a treatment for the new GI Joe film, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed Friday.
It is Landis’ first major studio assignment since his career imploded in 2019 after multiple women accused him of sexual and emotional abuse. Eight women spoke to the Daily Beast for that exposé. CAA dropped him the same week it published.
No actual charges were ever filed against Landis.
Max Landis Allegations: Actor Doesn’t Stand Alone
The 2019 Daily Beast investigation, written by Melissa Leon, included accounts from eight women who described a pattern of behavior spanning years.
The accusations included sexual assault, physical abuse, and sustained psychological manipulation.
Multiple women described being isolated from friends and family during relationships with Landis. Several described coercive sexual encounters. One accuser alleged that Landis had choked her during sex without consent.
Others described emotional abuse that left lasting psychological damage.
Landis was never charged with any crime. In his public response, he did not directly address the specific allegations but acknowledged a pattern of toxic behavior in his relationships. “I was a bad boyfriend,” he said in one video. “I get why certain people hate me.”
Now Landis has been given a second chance at Paramount.
Paramount has also hired Danny McBride, creator and star of HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones, to write a completely separate GI Joe script at the same time. The studio’s plan is to take both finished treatments and blend them into a single film.
McBride’s instinct runs toward dark absurdist comedy. Landis has always written with a superhero obsession that runs deep.
Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who produced all three previous GI Joe films, is attached as producer.
Who Is Max Landis?
Landis is the son of John Landis, the director behind The Blues Brothers and Animal House.
His script for Chronicle in 2012, a found footage superhero film directed by Josh Trank, launched the careers of Michael B. Jordan and Dane DeHaan and announced him as one of the most exciting writers in Hollywood.
Bright, his big-budget Will Smith fantasy for Netflix in 2017, became one of the platform’s biggest early hits. He was known around town for selling spec scripts for millions of dollars and had a devoted online following through long-form YouTube videos breaking down superhero mythology, including a viral take on the Death of Superman that accumulated millions of views and featured cameos from Simon Pegg, Elijah Wood, and Ron Howard.
He also wrote Superman: American Alien for DC Comics, a seven-issue miniseries widely considered one of the best reimaginings of the character in decades.
Then the Daily Beast published a hit-piece in 2019. Eight women came forward with detailed accusations.
CAA and his management company Writ Large dropped him immediately. Every project he had in development collapsed.
MGM shelved a script they had won a bidding war for. He was removed as a producer from Shadow in the Cloud, his original screenplay rewritten by Roseanne Liang — though Writers Guild rules gave him a co-writing credit on the finished film.
In the years since, Landis has kept working, just not inside Hollywood. He continued making YouTube videos, including a long-form monologue called Max Landis Presents: The Deposition of Barry Allen, in which he plays Barry Allen, the Flash, as a persecuted scientist whose career is over but who is given a chance to work again by an evil billionaire hiring criminals for secret endeavors.
Near the end of the video, Landis as Allen looks into the camera and says:
“I’m not one of the psychos. I’m just a genius.”
In a separate YouTube video addressing the real-world accusations directly, Landis acknowledged what he called serious mistakes in his relationships and described himself as a toxic partner.
“I get why certain people hate me,” he said.
Paramount Charting New Territory With Hires
The Landis hiring is not a one-off decision.
Under David Ellison, Skydance-run Paramount has developed a clear and deliberate track record of bringing back figures the rest of Hollywood had written off.
Brett Ratner is making Rush Hour 4 at the studio after his own misconduct allegations. Johnny Depp has been brought back. Former Pixar chief John Lasseter, forced out of Disney following workplace misconduct, is working there now.
The pattern is consistent enough that it looks like policy. Whether audiences go along with it is a different question entirely.
Where Does GI Joe Stand Today?
The first two films, The Rise of Cobra in 2009 and Retaliation in 2013, both featuring Channing Tatum, were genuine global hits, combining for $678 million worldwide.
The 2021 spinoff Snake Eyes, starring Henry Golding, earned just $40 million after the pandemic gutted its theatrical run and never recovered.
Both scripts are early-stage treatments. No director is attached. No casting decisions have been made. Paramount could end up making one of them, both of them, or neither.
The studio has been down this road before with Transformers and Star Trek, developing multiple versions simultaneously before one pulls ahead.
What is already guaranteed is that hiring Max Landis ensures this movie will be talked about long before a single frame is shot.
