G.I. Joe: Retaliation had barely been in theaters for a week before it was revealed that Paramount is already planning to put a sequel into the works. By the sound of it, the studio is wasting no time in getting development underway, with the G.I. Joe: Retaliation screenwriters already back onboard to put together a script. It's possible that G.I. Joe 3 will be in theaters by the end of 2014.

When asked what exactly they were planning for the sequel, writing team Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick replied that they'd like to "resurrect the Baroness like a zombie" in the next film. It's an odd way of phrasing it, since the Baroness isn't actually dead (unless she quietly expired offscreen), but since she was effectively buried for the duration of G.I. Joe: Retaliation, she's also had quite a bit of time to get up to no good while the Joe's were distracted.

Baroness & Storm Shadow G.I. Joe 3

The writers' casual comment to IGN about zombies could just be attributed to the recent release of their Zombieland: The Series TV pilot, or it could mean that they're considering bringing back a certain character from the G.I. Joe movies who died quite early on in Retaliation, much to the shock of the franchise's fans. There's more than enough of a sci-fi element in the G.I. Joe universe to easily justify bringing back characters from the dead, even without resorting to a generic faked death/body double/identical twin explanation.

As our G.I. Joe Retaliation review and SR Underground podcast indicate, most of the Screen Rant writers were a little underwhelmed by G.I. Joe: Retaliation, particularly by the lackluster story, which itself included the return of a "dead" character (Storm Shadow) with absolutely no explanation as to how he cheated the grave; ergo, Reese and Wernick clearly won't have to work any harder than convincing actress Sienna Miller to return, should they truly want The Baroness back.

Dwayne Johnson in 'G.I. Joe: Retaliation'

Aside from the Baroness, the writers haven't yet named any characters that they specifically want to bring back for G.I. Joe 3. Having said that, Dwayne Johnson will almost certainly be returning - according to him, anyway. When asked whether or not he would be invited back to play Roadblock, the actor replied: "I'm leading the Joe's so I better, or there's a problem."

Reese and Wernick didn't drop any other hints about what we might see in the story, but since G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra featured a villain with a weapon capable of decimating cities, and G.I. Joe: Retaliation's villain had enough firepower to destroy entire countries, the logical next step is a bad guy intent on destroying the entire solar system - maybe the rest of the galaxy as well. We'll save universal Armageddon for G.I. Joe 4.

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We'll keep you updated on G.I. Joe 3 as the project develops.

Source: IGN